Officials at the Iowa Veterans Home in Marshalltown say a new World War II memorial now graces the grounds of the institution, following the earlier placement of monuments for other wars.
The memorial was dedicated last month, less than a year after a Des Moines service group took on the project.
Commandante Jodi Tymeson says a veteran at the home requested the memorial.
“One of our residents said why do we have a Vietnam memorial and a Korean memorial but not one for World War II,” Tymeson says. “I said someone raised the money for the other memorials and that's not been true for the World War II monument yet.”
An Emerging Leaders Group with the Grinnell Mutual Reinsurance Company raised the money for the memorial, and it quickly became a reality.
“We still need to do some landscaping in the spring,” Tymeson said. “We dedicated the monument on October 17th, less than a year from the time they asked the question until the monument was completed.”
The service group learned of the omission while interviewing a resident at the home. They raised 30,000 dollars.
The new memorial is on Liberty Lane near the Korean and Vietnam War memorials.
Currently there are 62 WWII veterans living at the home.
