Community comes together to honor veterans

The small city of Schertz is unveiling a tribute to those who have served our country. 

The new Veterans Memorial Plaza started as the dream of one Schertz resident, Ruth Tienor.

"(Joint Base San Antonio) Randolph is five miles away, Military City is downtown, and we don't have anything that honors our veterans, and that's what kind of made me think about it," Tienor said.

Tienor brought her thoughts to the city of Schertz, which was happy to help. The city donated a prime piece of property right off of Schertz Parkway. 

To pay for the memorial plaza, the committee reached out to the community.

"We created a website and had a list on our website that showed what we needed and how much each item costs," Tienor said.

From individuals to businesses, the community responded.

"They would visit the website and call us and tell us, 'Hey, I can do this,' or 'I can help you with that!'" Tienor said.

The plaza is a pentagon over a star with five tips pointing to military monuments. Each monument represents a branch of service. On the monuments are educational information -- from the year the branch was formed to the creed it lives by.

The center of plaza has a circle with three flags, the American flag, the Texas flag and the POW/MIA flag.

Below the flags are two very special statues. The Battle Cross, which signifies the fallen soldier, and a bronzed statue of a boy, holding a folded flag in one hand, saluting with the other, and a tear running down his cheek.

"A veteran actually made the statue of the boy. It was an emotional labor of love. The Battle Cross statue was donated by the Resurrection Baptist Church," Tienor said.

Paving the pathway around the memorial are personalized bricks. Each brick was purchased in the honor of a veteran and displays his or her service and the battles they fought in. The bricks represent veterans who served all the way back to the Civil War to those currently serving in Afghanistan and every battle in between.

Ed Higgs is proud of his uncle's plaque that points to the Marine Corps monument.

"It makes me proud of what he did. I guess that's why I followed in his footsteps, just in a different branch of the service. I served in the Air Force," Higgs said.

Higgs said he has a long family tradition of military service. His mother was even a Rosie Riveter in World War II.

"She worked on marine aircraft. The women stepped up to do the jobs of the men who were at war. They served our country too, millions of them." Higgs said.

They are still putting the finishing touches on the Schertz Veterans Memorial, but will officially unveil it on Memorial Day. The bricks are available for purchase in honor of any veteran for $75 dollars. 

On Memorial Day, they will have a booth set up in front of the memorial and will offer a special price of $50.

For more information about the memorial, visit their website.

For a list of recent stories Leslie Mouton has done, click here.

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