Army engineers unveil memorial to fallen soldiers at ENFORCE conference

Pulaski County Daily News ^ | 4/8/2011 | Darrell Todd Maurina

[darrellmaurina]

FORT LEONARD WOOD, Mo. (April 8, 2011) — Army personnel didn’t heavily publicize it because the World War II museum chapel on post was already expected to be filled beyond capacity, but engineer soldiers held a service for fallen engineers Thursday night and unveiled a memorial to engineers who have died in the current War on Terror. The memorial is made of marble and engraved with the names of all engineer soldiers who have died in combat since the Sept. 11, 2011 terrorist attacks, said Lt. Col. Tim O’Brien, who is coordinating the ENFORCE engineer senior leader conference currently underway at Fort Leonard Wood. O’Brien noted that many of the “gold star” families who have recently lost soldiers in combat were expected to attend the service. Building a memorial during a war is unusual, and planners know they’ll have to add more names later. “We’ve been in conflict for nine years so that is different. The names will be engraved and each year will be engraved with whatever additional names have made the ultimate sacrifice,” O’Brien said. The list of names on the memorial begins with Sgt. 1st Class Paul R. Smith, for whom Smith Hall in Fort Leonard Wood’s Counter Explosive Hazards Center is named, and includes about three hundred names. The names on the memorial include about three dozen who died in the past year, O’Brien said, which is partly due to the inherent danger of certain missions in which engineers have taken the leadership in current military conflicts. “Route clearance definitely is an issue; it’s a dangerous mission,” O’Brien said. “No matter what the numbers were, they were definitely higher this year than last year.”

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