WASHINGTON (Army News Service, May 20, 2004 – While studying the design of the Vietnam Memorial 10 years ago, one member of the class at Riverside High School history class in Painesville, Ohio, saw a graphic image that would start her on a rewarding and satisfying journey.

It took 10 years for this vision to become a reality. Jodie Reckart, now 28, and her classmates were in Dr. Mary Porter’s art history class and were getting ready for a high school football weekend, when an image on television changed the students’ lives. The picture tube broadcast a different type of crowd; a crowd cheering and rejoicing as the body of Staff Sgt. William Cleveland was dragged through the streets of Mogadishu.

Reckart and her fellow students did not just feel sad for a moment, they acted. Their teacher, Porter, broke them up into five groups and the students came up with five ideas. One idea was to build a forty-foot red, granite pyramid with water cascading down the sides on the Mall dedicated to all who lost their lives in undeclared wars and training accidents.

The gung ho students set out to change the world and build a monument, but soon encountered a more resolute foe than Somalian warlords — bureaucracy.

“We stuck with it,” Reckart said. “We passed (the bill) through the House twice, but each time it didn’t go through the Senate. Then we found out that the Commemorative Works Act wouldn’t allow the building of memorials for undeclared wars. I think we learned not to give up.”

The students of the class of 1994 and the following classes fought for a memorial. The results were unveiled Tuesday morning in Section 55 of Arlington National Cemetery. A Magnolia tree and a plaque with faith, honor and virtue etched across the top. The monument and tree is also dedicated to the memory of Chief Warrant Officers Kevin L. Reichert and David Gibbs, whose Apache helicopter crashed in Albania during a training mission.

Harry Walker, 18, is one of the present students who continued his predecessors fight for a memorial.

“The idea could have come from anywhere, it just happened to come from us,” Walker said. “I know our advisor said ‘the Soldiers are receiving a tree, they deserve a forest.’ ”

Congressman Steven LaTourette and Sen. George Voinovich spearheaded the legislative efforts.

LaTourette said the “students were told, ‘this is a wonderful idea but,’” he said. “We met a year ago with (Arlington National Cemetery superintendent) Jack Metzler and were told we couldn’t do a big one.”

Lt. Gen. Richard Cody attended and said after the ceremony how he and his aide Col. Rife were in Kosovo serving as peacekeepers when the two helicopter pilots perished in Albania. Cody presently has two sons flying Army helicopters.

“These are good young kids,” Cody said. “I thought it was appropriate we were here.”

There are 174 other such memorials in the cemetery and a ban on new ones was enacted five years ago. The superintendent relented and the community of Painesville had scored a victory, not for themselves, but for the memory of brave men and women.

“Every single year young people kept alive the hope of the memorial,” Porter said. “Staff Sgt. William Cleveland, they dragged your body through the streets of Mogadishu, but they couldn’t destroy your spirit.”

(Editors note: Dennis Ryan is a staff writer for the Pentagram.)