Kittery Honors Its Veterans
The Monument's History
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Newspaper Articles relative to this monument by date. 1. May 2000 2. Nov 2000 3. Nov 2000 4. Jan 2001 5. May 2002 6. Jun 2002 7. Nov 2005 8. Nov 2005 9. Nov 2005 |
The idea of a monument to honor the Korean and Vietnam Veterans of Kittery was conceived by Bibb Longcrier in 1989. After researching the names from the Veterans Administration in Augusta, Longcrier sought the help of two local civic organizations and was turned down as a bad or unaccomplishable idea. So, the project was dropped but the research materials were kept on hand. In 1997, at a Kiwanis Installations gathering, Longcrier was approached to restart the project, with help from some of the club members. Longcrier recruited a few others until he had a committee of eight; most were veterans but not all. It was soon learned that they must become a 501(c)(3) Tax Exempt Organization under the Internal Revenue Service. To be 501(C)(3) eligible, we had to be a registered non-profit corporation in the State of Maine and, to do that, we had to have a set of by-laws. So, the committee's first job was to write the by-laws, establish a set of officers and directors and get registered. All this took about a year. We had meetings and more meetings. (Click on the pictures to enlarge them.). 
Once we were a legal tax-exempt organization, we began raising funds and seeking additional names for the monument and designing the monument. As soon as it was known that we were building a monument, people began wanting their names on it. Eligible or not. So we had to establish the criteria for being eligible for the monument. It was a monument to honor Kittery's Korean and Vietnam veterans. The town has a WWI monument in the John Paul Jones park and a WWII monument in the Rice Library so those veterans were not to be on this monument. (Click on the pictures to enlarge them.). 
The committee established the following criteria for eligibility. A veteran must have served during the Korean War and/or the Vietnam War and must meet ONE of the following: 1) Born in Kittery or: 2) Graduated from Traip Academy or: 3) Lived in Kittery when he/she entered the service or: 4) Used Kittery as a home of record while in the service. We accepted, without question, the list we acquired from the Va in Augusta. The committee required other veterans to submit militarty records (generally their DD-214) to verify both the qualifications for time of service and their connections to Kittery. Many veterans who currently live in Kittery requested to be on the monument but were denied because they move to Kittery later in life and did not meet any of the criteria above. None of the committee members were eligible for the same reasons. Then, we had to design the monument and decided on a center stone with the seals of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard and Merchant Marines and two side stones; one for the names of the Korean Veterans and the other for the Vietnam Veterans. There were some 300 names for the Korean side and 475 on the other. We looked at monuments in other communities. Greenland and Strathan had monuments that influenced ours greatly. Here are pictures of the Greenland monument, left and center, and Stratham on the right.. (Click on the pictures to enlarge them.) 
Then we began raising funds which, we didn't realize it at the time, would be the most difficult part of the entire project. As back in 1989, when we first started, there was much less support than we ever assumed. Major civic organizations and town businesses failed to support us with donations and the town voted down a $15,000.00 bond late in the project. We turned to small fundraising projects of sitting in front of stores (that did support us) with donation buckets and sold raffles tickets and discount coupons. (Click on the pictures to enlarge them.) At the Eliot Festival Rolling Thunder Booth Rolling thunder 
The Indian Motorcycle shop invited us to their "Indian Days" festival and we met with several motorcycle organizations that supported us is various ways. We sponsored a "Poker Run" and had motorcycle clubs from three states riding and helping. The Rolling Thunder and the United Bikers of Maine invited us to their "Toys for Tots" rallies to set up a booth and they really helped us there. We also ran a booth at a large motorcycle rally at the University of New Hampshire sponsored by a local radio station. (Click on the pictures to enlarge them.) The Indian Motorcycle Shop Our Booths at Indian's and at the UNH Rally 
We worked with Seacoast Memorials on monument designs and prices and we also went through edit after edit trying to make sure the list of names was clean and correct. The design of the monument had to be changed due to funds and we did even more edits. We also had a problem on where to put the monument. This monument would have the names of some 750 Kittery Veterans and "drive-by" parks were not acceptable. Other places wanted long-term care guaranties that the committee could not provide, either through insurance or financially due to the severe shortage of funds and, since the committee would be desolving as an organization once monument is done, it could not provide the care. The Kittery Historical and Naval Society volunteered to have the monument placed on the Museum's property and agreed to the long-term care of the monument. That solved, we moved on raising funds. Finally, after large donations from three committee members, we had sufficient funds to build the monument. The new design would still have the center stone as originally planned but the side stones would now be obelisk in shape and six feet tall. We signed the contract and Seacoast Memorials ordered the stones. The monument was installed at the Museum and the dedication was held November 11, 2005. Representatives from the offices of U.S. Senator Snowe, U.S. Senator Collins, U.S. Congressman Allen, State Congressman Wheeler, Pease Air National Guard, Portsmouth Naval Ship Yard, Town Manager, VFW, and many retired military members and veterans attended. The Color Guard was provided by the Marine Corp League and The Rolling Thunder Motorcycle Club made a special presentation of an MIA/POW flag and hoisted it up the Museum's flagpole in a touching ceremony. 
The monument is visited daily by visitors from near and far and stands to honor those men and women from Kittery who served gallantly in the "Forgotten War" and the "Hated War". It says to all of them two very important words that have been unsaid for too many years now, "Welcome Home." |