Missouri

Missouri is one of the states that has no "official" Vietnam memorial, but I choose to consider this one "official"! The builder confirmed to me that it is the only site in Missouri to include all the names of the lost or missing.

Located in St. Peter's, a suburb of St. Louis, it began as one mans fulfillment of his promise to his brothers at Khe Sanh. He told then that if he survived the onslaught, he would build a memorial to them all.

It took some time for him to be able to deal with it all and the project grew from just his buddies at Khe Sanh to include all the lost and MIA from Missouri.

He built the memorial with individual bricks for each of the 1412 lost or missing from the state in his backyard, but when St. Peter's decided to build a new memorial to Vietnam and Korea (at Jungermann and Willot Roads), he donated the memorial to be part of this new one.

The plague on the nearby memorial speaks to lost dreams and this included his. He and his best friend were at Khe Sanh together. They both had dreams of of becoming professional baseball players. His friends dreams died, when he did, at Khe Sanh and the builders died when he was severely wounded, losing some of the use of one of his arms in the same action.

Another interesting side story to this site is that cell phone use was increasing dramatically when it was being built. So, the designers figured out a way to enclose all the equipment for a new tower with in the walls of the site and rather than build a new tower, the antennas are enclosed in the large flagpole nearby.

From here, on the 12th, we visit O'Fallon, at one time the home to three memorials! See you at 9:00am!