NORTH ANDOVER — Veterans, officials and community members gathered for the Late 20th Century Conflicts and the Global War on Terror Memorial’s dedication at Patriots Memorial Park on the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks Friday.
Guests of honor included veterans of all the conflicts and war that the monument honors along with Gold Star families.
The significance of dedicating the monument on 9/11 was not lost.
“The terrorist attacks on America, that clear September morning in 2001, would test our nation’s resolve just as Pearl Harbor and World War II had,” VFW Post quartermaster and retired Army 1st Sgt. David Hruban said.
“But this time would launch us into the longest war our service members would ever find themselves in, a war that ended just shy of two full decades.”
North Andover VFW Post commander and Army veteran Jeffrey Clark said he believes this is one of the first monuments in the area dedicated to the wars and conflicts since Vietnam in one consolidated, inclusive memorial.
Funding for most of the monument was covered by the town and state.
The memorial was four years in the making and started over veterans sharing stories at the VFW Post, Clark said.
A veteran asked why there wasn’t a monument for everyone who served after Vietnam as Patriots Memorial Park honors the military men and women who served before them.
Clark said that’s when it was realized there was no place to tell the stories of recent service members.
“I wonder if someday people will build a monument for our wars,” he recalled someone saying.
The question changed everything.
“This is about making sure our story had a place here,” Clark said, standing in front of the 12,000 pound memorial. “Those who went, those who did not come home, and those who came home and tried to find their way back to everyday life.”
The memorial covers the eight conflicts and operations since the Vietnam War and pays respects to those who served and died in them. These include Grenada, Panama, the Gulf War, Bosnia, Somalia and the Global War on Terror.
A bench sits in front of the monument for those to reflect with the inscription “for the unseen wounds of war that follow us home.”
The Battlefield Cross stands on top of the memorial, consisting of a fallen soldier’s helmet, inverted rifle representing the sacrifice, combat boots of a service member’s final march and dog tags to identify the fall.
The dedication ceremony included placing dog tags to represent three North Andover military members.
Cpl. Sean Gallagher killed in the Beirut bombings in 1983, Private First Class Evan O’Neill killed in action in 2003 in Afghanistan, and Staff Sgt. Scott Wilson who died as a result of service were remembered by their fellow veterans and relatives who hung their dog tags on the monument.
One side of the monument has the symbols of the different military branches that served in the conflicts along with the graphics of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
“Together those images remind us of the events that changed our nation and the conflicts that followed,” Clark said.
He said he hopes the monument serves a greater purpose for years to come, where people will view it, sit by it and ask questions.
“I hope someone tells them about the veterans represented here, where they went, what they did, what they sacrificed, and what some of them carried home,” Clark said.
The new memorial is now part of a park that helps preserve the stories of those who served through conflicts of the last century. The newest addition serves as a permanent place in the community’s collective history of another generation’s service and sacrifice, Deputy Secretary of the Massachusetts Executive Office of Veteran Services Andrea Gayle-Bennett said.
She said she hopes people born after Sept. 11, 2001, learn about the first responders and ordinary citizens who moved toward people who needed help and those who enlisted because of the tragic events.
“In the days, months, and years that did follow, thousands of Americans answered the call to serve,” Gayle-Bennett said. “They deployed to places many have never heard of before. They left behind spouses, children, parents, careers, and communities.
“America is an imperfect country. Our history makes that very clear, but I still believe it’s a country worth serving and we’re working to make better.”