Clark County Press (Neillsville, WI)

March 15, 2006, Page 2

Transcribed by Dolores (Mohr) Kenyon.

Model for Highground?s Korean War Veterans tribute approved

The members of The Highground?s Korea Committee looked at the life-sized model of one of the statues in the future Memorial to Korean War veterans for the first time last week, and liked what they saw.

What the committee members?some of whom were themselves veterans of the so-called ?Forgotten War??saw in the clay figure of an American soldier on guard duty were the tired eyes, the thirsty lips and the unrelenting stress of war on the soldier?s face, characteristics that to them were all-too-real, and anything but forgotten.

Sculptor Michael Martino transported the 300-pound sculpture to the veteran?s memorial park last Thursday so that committee members could view the statue before deciding whether to authorize him to proceed in having the statue permanently cast in bronze.

In a brief meeting following the viewing, Highground volunteer general Manager Kirk Rodman asked each of the committee members for their impressions.  The members were uniformly positive in their remarks, using words such as ?powerful,? ?realistic,? ?beautiful,? and ?great,? to comment on the visual effect the sculpture had on them personally.

?The face says it all,? one said of the human emotion portrayed in the GI?s squinting eyes and chapped lips as he is buffeted by the wind blowing about his elevated position as a look-out on the battlefield.

Martino, who created the model in his La Crosse studios, said that he tried to focus those emotions in the soldier?s facial features.  ?I tried to get that look, that emotion,? he said to committee members.

?It sounds like we have a winner.  There seems to be a consensus here,? Rodman said.

The committee members made it official, voting unanimously to approve the sculpture for the final bronzing process.  Martino immediately departed for Milwaukee and the foundry where the bronzing process is to be done.

There are to be two more statues in a grouping of American soldiers in the future Korean War memorial site at The Highground.

The entire memorial is projected to cost $170,000.  There has been $100,000 collected so far from mostly private donations.

The memorial site is to be completed sometime in 2007.