The unveiling of a memorial Battle Cross in honor of the slain servicemen who died on July 16 will take place at a Veterans Day ceremony in Collegedale on Wednesday. The Veteran’s Day program will take place at 3 p.m. at the Veterans Memorial Park in Collegedale.
“This will be a very, very special Veterans Day ceremony,” said Collegedale Commissioner Phil Garver, a Vietnam veteran who joined with other veterans to fund and build the Veterans Memorial Park in 2004. “One of the key elements in the development of this park was to focus on both education and remembrance, and I think this touches both.”
Commissioner Garver and his colleagues chose the Battlefield Cross design. The cross will be bronze and placed on top of a black granite stone near the Marine and Navy Star Memorial at the edge of the park.
Five servicemen were killed on July 16 in shootings at the Armed Forces Career Center and the U.S. Navy Reserve Center. The servicemen who died and who will be honored in Collegedale are Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant Thomas Sullivan, Marine Corps Lance Corporal Squire "Skip" Wells, Marine Corps Staff Sergeant David Wyatt, Corps Sergeant Carson Holmquist, and U.S. Navy Petty Officer Randall Smith.
The $25,000 price tag on the memorial came through private donations.
The Veterans Memorial Park is off Apison Pike in the heart of Collegedale, Tennessee (9300 block of Apison Pike). Accessible only by foot, the actual site is along the Greenway Path across the street from the Collegedale Public Library.