User:Exchange24/Town of Tonawanda Veterans Memorial

The Town of Tonawanda Veterans Memorial is a public memorial site in the Town of Tonawanda, New York. It is located in Walter M. Kenney Field and stands to honor the service of all members of the U.S. Armed Forces.

Construction of the memorial took roughly eight weeks and was completed in mid-August 2009. The memorial was formally dedicated on August 18, 2009 before a crowd of more than 1,500 people. Retired U.S. Army General and former U.S. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell delivered the keynote address.

The Town of Tonawanda Veterans Memorial project began in 2004 as a grassroots effort to establish a permanent site in the town for residents to gather and pay tribute to their relatives, friends, and fellow Americans who have served or currently serve in the U.S. Military. In 2007, the Town of Tonawanda Veterans Memorial Steering Committee was established to see the project through to completion. By the spring of 2009, the committee had raised enough money to begin construction of the memorial.

The memorial features a seven-foot V-shaped granite monument designed by artist and Vietnam veteran Ralph Sirianni. Granite plaques engraved with the names of local veterans hang on a wall behind the monument. The site also features a flagpole flying the flag of the United States and the POW/MIA flag, as well as six other flagpoles displaying the flags of the U.S. Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, and Merchant Marine.

Adjacent to the memorial is a Korean War-era Grumman F9F-6P Cougar Naval airframe that has been on display at Walter M. Kenney Field since May of 1959. During the construction of the memorial, a local auto collision shop volunteered to refurbish the F9F-6P airframe. To Refurbish the aluminum airframe, volunteers removed all old paint, pounded out dents, filled in cracks, repainted all surfaces, and applied decals to the fuselage and wings. The entire process and took roughly three weeks to complete.