The Real Statue Story....

The idea of a statue came in a round-about way. I was watching on tv a wave of troops coming home on C-17s &their landings at McChord AFB. It was very touching because the Air Force allowed the soldier's families torush and great them on the tarmac after departing the planes from lengthy deplopyments inIraq & Afganistan. I thought that we should capture the exact moment when the families firstgreet each other. Originally, I thought a statue depicting a uniformed soldier on one knee with outstrechedarms and a daughter rushing to greet him would be perfect. I met with Jim Rydland & he contactedsculptur Gareth Curtis. Gareth noted that to have separate models (father & daughter) would requiretwo pourings and raise the cost exponentially. I don't know who came up with the model/idea of ourexisting statue but I think it may have been Gareth's. Jim Rydland and I then met and discussedfund raising, selling of lithographs and what the grounds may look like around the statue.I still have the scratchings of that idea from the meeting. We discussed possible locationsand ruled out the center of roundabouts for two reasons. First, we wanted the statue to be a "hands-on" type of deal where people could touch it & take photos etc. Second, we thoughtthere might be liability if someone were to wreck while distracted by the statue. At this point,Jim took over and brought it to the board as our centennial project. As a newer Rotarian,I didn't even know what a centennial project was, but this turned out to be one of the bestI am sure!Andrew Oczkewicz