Posted on 10/11/2008 4:52:20 AM PDT by SandRat
SIERRA VISTA — A pair of combat boots, a rifle and a helmet.
Together, those items are used to honor a fallen member of America’s armed forces.
Between the boots, an inverted M-16 is placed and on the butt of the rifle sits a helmet, thus creating a Fallen Soldier Memorial, which is also known as the Soldier’s Fallen Cross Memorial and Battlefield Cross.
Jacob Hall’s goal is to have a 150-pound, nearly 5-foot-tall bronze replica of the monument placed near the Committal Shelter of the Southern Arizona Veterans Memorial Cemetery by Veterans Day.
But he still needs nearly $4,000 of the more than $4,500 cost to complete his Eagle Scout project.
On Friday night, Hall and a fellow Scout from recently formed Troop 486, which is sponsored by Village Meadows Baptist Church, worked bussing tables for tips at VFW Post 9972 during the Ladies’ Auxiliary dinner, which is held on the second Friday of each month.
As diners paid for their meals, a tip jar was close by, just as it will be next Friday when he will be back at the VFW post to bus for the steak fry dinner.
Hall is running up against a fast-moving timetable, as he must have his project completed before his 18th birthday, which is Thanksgiving Day.
A senior at the Center for Academic Success, he plans to spend two years at Cochise College before heading to Northern Arizona University to pursue a degree in forestry and eventually work for the U.S. Forest Service.
Part of the requirement to be awarded Boy Scouting’s top award also requires having 21 merit badges. Hall has 19 and is close to finishing two others. Some of his merit badges include those that are geared to his future. He has the camping, environmental science, bird study, fish and wildlife management and forestry badges.
If being busy raising money for the memorial wasn’t enough, he also works as a janitor at the Village Meadows Baptist Church.
An assistant senior patrol leader with the troop, which has about a half dozen members, Hall has lived with his grandparents Bill and Shari Hermes for a year.
In deciding what he wanted to do as an Eagle Scout project, Hall said his desire was do something to honor the military service of is family, especially Bill Hermes, grandparents John and Joyce Hall and great-grandfather George Coover.
“I want it to mean something to them, to honor them,” the 17-year-old said.
After speaking with cemetery administrator Joe Larson, the Scout said he liked the idea of having a memorial where it will be part of the final services for those who will be buried there.
Larson said a number of Boy Scouts have or are in the process of doing projects at the cemetery to become Eagle Scouts.
If successful in his fundraising attempts, Hall’s project will be placed at the Committal Shelter, “just off to the right side near the road.”
Four projects at the cemetery have been completed, and the teens are in the final process of becoming Eagle Scouts, Larson said.
They are:
• Andrew Cook, who raised $9,000 to plant 37 mature trees in the cemetery. Cook is to become an Eagle Scout today.
• Bryan Stevens, who obtained donated pavers and using them he designed and installed a pad for the honor guard firing party at the Committal Shelter.
• Daryl Thompson, who raised funds and obtained donated materials for a beautification project at the Committal Shelter.
• Jarrod Ward, who raised more than $2,800 to landscape the Assembly Area with desert adaptive plants and red, white and blue flowers.
There are about a dozen other Scouts working on Eagle Scout projects, which includes working on the area where soldiers from the late 1800s will be reburied in May as part of the Historical Soldier Relocation Project, Larson said.
That Scouts want to honor America’s veterans is “a fine example of patriotism,” the cemetery administrator said.
Hall said the other Scouts from his troop are helping with the project, which will include installing a concrete base for the memorial.
The Scouts also have been collecting cans to crush and sell at a recycling center, and Hall noted he would be happy for any donations of cans.
This morning, Hall will be running a garage sale at his grandparents’ home at 3301 Choctaw Drive with all the proceeds going to the project.
Herald/Review senior reporter Bill Hess can be reached at 515-4615 or by e-mail at bill.hess@svherald.com.
Individuals interested in donating funds for Life Scout Jacob Hall’s Fallen Soldier Memorial Eagle Scout project can make donations as follows:
• Boy Scout Troop 486 Fallen Soldier Memorial, Village Meadows Baptist Church, 1100 El Camino Real, Sierra Vista, AZ 85635
• Boy Scout Troop 486 Fallen Soldier Memorial, Southern Arizona Veterans Memorial Cemetery Foundation, 1300 Buffalo Soldier Trail, Sierra Vista AZ 85635.
• Boy Scout Troop 486 Fallen Soldier Memorial at a special savings account at Wells Fargo Bank.
All contributions are tax deductible.
Individuals, or groups, that donate $250 or more will have their names, or organization’s name, engraved on a plaque displayed at the memorial site.
Makes me proud. Still some great youth out there.
As a reviewer of many many Eagle projects, I find this one over ambitious. The Eagle project is all about leadership and leader training . The Eagle project should not involve fund raising, especially on the scale of many thousands if dollars.
This project can still be accomplished but it should be split in to more than one.
It is ridiculous to hang the albatross of many thousands of dollars around the neck of a scout who waited till the last minute for such a large endeavor. The lesson that will be learned is that his chestnuts will be pulled out of the fire by others who can’t let him fail.
True, he is a midnight Eagle, one of my two Eagle Scouts was also, but he is a Boy Scout, and Scouts and Scouters help other Scouts. I am sending him my donation.
I just spent the day working on an Eagle project. A previous Eagle built a garage for the church that sponsors our unit, about 100 feet away from the church building. This Scout has arranged to run electric from the church into the garage. Today’s work:
We rented a sod cutter,
cut the sod and rolled it up
Rented a trencher
Dug a 6” wide trench about 120 feet long
Connected up 120 feet of Schedule 40 PVC conduit
Pulled 4 wires through it
Drilled a hole through the church’s exterior wall
Ran conduit up to it
Ran conduit back through the church to the boiler room
Hooked up a fused switch box
Connected the outdoor conduit to the conduit that had been preinstalled though the garage’s concrete slab floor
Hooked up a breaker box in the garage
Connected up the wiring at both ends.
Filled in the trench, replaced the sod and watered it throughly.
Now we have live electric in the garage; next weekend we’ll put some wiring and conduit up and put in lights, outlets and switches, including a flood light on the garage to light up the end of our church parking lot (where I’ve found the occasional used condom - it’s set well back off of the road).
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