$15,000 monument to be installed at the Russell County Veterans Memorial
On Monday, the Russell County Commission unanimously voted for the Russell County Veterans Memorial to receive a new $15,000 monument.
Jerry Simmons is a Vietnam veteran who was drafted into the armed forces. He now serves as the director of the memorial.
'When I left Vietnam and was coming home and everything we the mia and pow were almost forgotten about and people weren't talking about the mia's pows and I told myself I would never let them be forgotten. Mia's and POWS should never be forgotten. Actually no veteran should be able to be forgotten.'
Jerry Simmons, Director of Russell County Memorial
Simmons says they have been working to get this monument for two years. Now, the goal is to have the monument installed by Veterans Day.
Simmons says the monument is a way to keep memories alive.
'That's what it's all about to me,' Simmons says.'Is for veterans and their families to come out here and just sit down and reflect and the memories of what it was to be in the military or someone in the military.'
'It's an opportunity for the community to come together and a brotherhood,' Simmons explains. 'It's a relationship. It's a strand, runs through everyone of the same strength. We're all got something. We all got that camaraderie, something we all put on the line for our country.'
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Yahoo
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‘Something that mattered': 3 Kentucky women on their military service
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'When I talk to anybody about the military, I say it is so easy to take a civilian, put them through boot camp and turn them into a military person,' Baker said. 'But once you're a military person, you're not coming back to civilian. I'm not the same person I was when I joined up.' She wouldn't trade her service years for anything. But that doesn't mean everything was always smooth sailing. 'We did the same job that men did, and we had to work harder than the men to be taken seriously… We were signing petitions saying that we wanted the same rights as the men who served… We fought tooth and nail for everything that we have gotten.' She recalled a story from June 2022, when Honor Flight Kentucky hosted 135 women, including Baker, on the first female-only Honor Flight. There was a younger woman on the flight who kept trying to speak with Baker, but the logistics of the day kept them apart. Finally, as the day was winding down, the two women spoke. 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There's nothing that will ever live up to the experiences that I had in the Navy.'
