Vietnam memorial a step closer

SAND SPRINGS, Okla. (AP) -- The Sand Springs city council has voted to pay $30,000 for 3.5 acres of land for a memorial to Oklahoma's Vietnam veterans. <br><br>"Getting our land is a major step,"

Monday, April 17th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

SAND SPRINGS, Okla. (AP) -- The Sand Springs city council has voted to pay $30,000 for 3.5 acres of land for a memorial to Oklahoma's Vietnam veterans.

"Getting our land is a major step," said Patsy Varnell, secretary-treasurer for Oklahoma Vietnam Veterans Memorial Inc." Now we can go to corporations and foundations for substantial contributions for the first phase or the project."

The veterans group will hold a long-term, no-cost lease to the property so the land can be developed as a public facility, said City Manager Loy Calhoun.

Varnell said the group would like to break ground on the memorial as early as this summer, with the first of three phases for the projects finished in 2002.

Planners want to name the memorial "Firebase Hope." A firebase was a semi-permanent operational station where troops would rest and recover from patrols in Vietnam.

"I expect this memorial to have the same effect on our veterans as The Wall in Washington, D.C.," Varnell said. The Wall monument was dedicated in the early 1980s for Vietnam veterans and their families.

Initial cost figures for the project are around $2.5 million. The design calls for walls of black granite to form the boundaries of a plaza 100 feet long and 70 feet wide. An honor wall will have the names of the nearly 1,000 Oklahomans killed in Vietnam action.

To find the victims' names, Varnell said organizers will use both official Department of Defense records and other sources for casualties who were wounded in Vietnam but died elsewhere.

Six larger-than-life-size statues will honor the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard and women who served in the war.

Another section will recognize those who were prisoners of war and still missing in action, Varnell said.

"This is a grass-roots effort. The veterans themselves came up with the ideas and sketched initial plans," she said. That's why some parts of the memorial will recognize the POWs and MIAs, war dogs, and even prison camps, she said.
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On the Web:
www.firebasehope.org .