After more than a decade of work, on July 2 the City of Bostwick finalized its Bostwick Veterans Plaza. The project was designed as a memorial for 109 soldiers from Morgan County who were killed in action in various wars throughout U.S. history.
On Oct. 26, American Legion Post 37 will hold a ceremony to celebrate the project’s completion.
Morgan County resident and veteran Keith Howard said the project’s origins trace back to 2010, when he sat on an Eagle Scout Board for fellow resident J.P. Adcock. After lengthy research, Adcock and his father built 109 crosses, one for each soldier, which remain displayed each year in the City of Madison’s Memorial Day Ceremony at the town park.
After noticing a handful of former Bostwick residents among the fallen soldiers, Howard had the idea to create a project to memorialize them.
“Later [in 2012], the city of Bostwick said they’re getting a grant to update the park,” Howard said. “For me, that looked like a good opportunity to say, ‘Hey, when you update the park, could we not put something to honor the victims?’” Following his suggestion, the city approved his request, allowing the creation of the Bostwick Veterans Committee, where Howard served as chair. Four years later, the committee submitted a request to implement what is now the Bostwick Veterans Plaza.
“The committee represented the branches of service, including Army, Marines, Navy, and the Air Force. We decided that we wanted it to be low maintenance and last forever, but something that would kind of take care of itself, so that’s when we came up with the plaza,” Howard said.
In creating the project, the Boston Veterans Committee suggested adding multiple details, including stones for each branch of service, a prisoner of war/missing in action stone, and a paver pavilion for local veterans to engrave their service. They additionally suggested a space between branch stones and pavers to recognize the Bostwick soldiers killed in action.
Howard said that over 10 years, the committee “fell asleep at the wheel” until Morgan County resident Mary Alice Gilbert reached out and suggested they finalize the project in time for the USA’s 250th anniversary. The two then conducted several weeks of research, discovering nine former Bostwick residents were killed in action.
With Gilbert and Howard’s findings, the city approved the purchase of the final project installations, including nine granite pavers in the space between the branch stones, veteran names, the relocated MIA/POW stone, and a stone for the United States Space Force.
“It was a good thing that [Gilbert] did the searching to find those six, as I knew nothing about them; we thought it was originally five,” Howard said. “When you really go back, it wasn’t even specifically World War I or World War II; we never defined the city limits of Bostwick but wanted to include the whole community.”