The design of a veterans memorial planned for Battle Ground's Kiwanis Park by Kirsti Hauswald, landscape designer for AKS Engineering & Forestry in Vancouver, was favored by the city council and community members over three other designs. Each designer donated his or her time to the project.
When Army Pvt. Andrew Shields was killed in Afghanistan in May 2008, Battle Ground Mayor Mike Ciraulo realized the city didn’t have any place to memorialize the 2007 Battle Ground High graduate and other fallen veterans.
An old rock sat in front of City Hall bearing the names of veterans, but it was incomplete and hadn’t been updated in decades.
“It wasn’t an adequate way to honor those who paid the ultimate price,” Ciraulo said.
So Ciraulo challenged the city’s parks advisory board to create a veterans memorial in one of the city’s parks. For the last two years, he’s challenged the Battle Ground community to get involved. And now, he’s challenging everyone to come together in order to break ground on the project by Veterans Day.
Tip: you can interact with this map using your
fingerscursor (or two fingers on touch screens)cursor.
Map
“We’ve lost a considerable amount of our sons and daughters here,” he said. “And I would love to be able to invite their parents and their families to a local event.”
Once charged with the task, the parks advisory committee began looking for potential sites in city parks and, with assistance from the city council, developed a general idea of what should be included in the memorial. The committee then sent requests to various engineering firms, seeking concept drawing donations. The project has not, and will not, receive any city funds.
The city held public meetings to collect input on the four designs submitted. Community members overwhelmingly favored the design by Kirsti Hauswald, a landscape designer for AKS Engineering & Forestry in Vancouver. The council approved the proposal to place the memorial in Kiwanis Park, 422 S.W. Fourth Ave., near the intersection of Southwest Fourth Street and Southwest Third Avenue.
The focal point of the project is a stone memorial wall featuring dark granite slabs engraved with the names of soldiers who died. The arched wall will stand just 1 to 2 feet at the ends and reach about 7 feet in the middle.
Curving stairs, engraved with verses of “Taps,” will offer visitors a closer look at the wall and provide informal seating. Five polished concrete benches — representing the five branches of the military — will be placed in the plaza and include embedded plaques dedicated to each military branch. The United States, Washington state and Battle Ground city flags will fly above the memorial. Flowering cherry trees will border the memorial and provide a backdrop for the wall.
“I think it’s a very fitting memorial to all of the veterans who have died in the line of duty,” Ciraulo said.
Down the road, the council will decide on a name for the memorial site and determine criteria for names to be placed on the wall.
The city is finalizing the design plan, which won’t likely be complete until June, and will then begin searching for supply, labor and monetary donations to complete the project, said Debbi Hanson, director of parks and recreation. The city does not yet have an estimated cost for the memorial, but Hanson said it will be completely funded by donations.
The city is working with the nonprofit Parks Foundation of Clark County to collect donations. The foundation website, http://www.parksfoundation.us, will soon have a link to donate to the project.
“This being a grass-roots, local effort, I think it will be one of those projects that will be near and dear to many hearts,” Hanson said.
