Oconto Falls Area Veterans Monument dedicated under cool, sunny skies

OCONTO FALLS — Saturday was a day of remembering, of sharing and of telling stories.

Fulfilling a vision that the late Marie Magnin first voiced eight years ago, a new Oconto Falls Area Veterans Monument was dedicated during an hourlong ceremony at the high school and a short program at the monument next to the school district offices.

The main event was moved indoors because of unseasonably cold temperatures, although bright sun and clear skies reigned this day.

“This was a community partnership effort,” said organizer Bob Maloney in his opening remarks. “The project was and is a partnership between our community, local veterans, the American Legion Post 302, the American Legion Auxiliary Unit 302 and the Oconto Falls School District. Working together, we accomplished our goals on building what Marie Magnin started.”

Post 302 Commander Terris Umentum said Magnin came to him with the idea of a monument for veterans in memory of her husband, “Chub,” who died in 2010. She lived to see the revival of the project after several years’ pause, but she died April 24 before it was completed.

Five local veterans provided reflections about military and community service, and the Oconto Falls High School choir and band — directed by Amy Thiel and Danny Smith, respectively — performed musical selections for the occasion.

Superintendent Dean Hess, a retired U.S. Army Reserves major, said the monument will serve to remind the community how much can be accomplished through teamwork to honor the veterans of yesterday, today and tomorrow.

“I hope that its physical presence will help us to remember this nation was founded on this teamwork, the teamwork of all citizens coming together in servanthood,” Hess said. “It’s important for future generations to be able to reflect on the past, so that they can make decisions today for the ever improvement of tomorrow.”

Paula Gardipee, a retired Army master sergeant, spoke of how her service enabled her to travel the world, teaching Russian in California and Finland, among other locales.

“The memorial serves as a continuing reminder of the dedication to service by me and my comrades with whom I served,” said Gardipee, a retired Oconto Falls teacher. “Thank you again for being here to dedicate this wonderful project, and I thank all those who spent so much time and effort to make this a reality.”

The Rev. Gary Olson shared the biblical story of how, when Joshua led his people into the Promised Land, he had them set up a ring of boulders as a monument so that future generations would ask, “What’s that,” and elders could tell the story of their exodus.

“It’s my hope my prayer for us here today that this is just a starting point, this veterans memorial, that it reminds us on a regular basis or better yet a daily basis the service, the sacrifice offered by our men and women in uniform,” Olson said, “and most important, it offers an opportunity for us to teach the next generation when they point to it and say, ‘What do those words mean?’”

Steve Magnin, a retired Army sergeant major, said the power of the monument hit home when he saw a family looking at the names on the various bronze panels and one of them said, “Oh! There’s Daddy.”

This monument will bring family, friends and past and future veterans together to say thank you, Magnin said. “Every brick, every name on those bricks, will be in itself a history lesson to those who know that soldier, that sailor, that airman, that Marine and that Coast Guardsman,” he said. “This monument will be the Oconto Falls area’s own reflection wall.”

At the close, Monica Skarban, retired U.S. Air Force, read the names of Oconto Falls area service members who died while serving, as Gerald Linzmeyer, Post 302 adjutant, sounded a bell.

“Now it’s up to all of us to come here to this memorial that is beautiful, sit, reflect, tell stories, let the stories live and share what we’ve got,” Skarban said. “Because our country is free because what people have given.”

Most in the crowd of more than 400 then retired to the monument itself for a flag raising, unveiling of a plaque in memory of “Marie’s Vision” and the sealing of a time capsule filled with mementos of 2019, to be opened Nov. 9, 2044 — the 25th anniversary of the dedication.