Concrete and stone cannot bring back the dead, but it can help us remember them forever.
This is just some of the philosophy being held by members of nine eternally connected families, who together spent this past Saturday in western Trigg County near Vinson Cemetery — and were personally on hand to see the unveiling of a new memorial honoring the Fort Campbell soldiers who died in a March 29, 2023, two-helicopter crash.
Among those who perished: Warrant Officer 1 Aaron Healy, born to parents Michael and Vicki, and who was raised in Cape Coral, Florida, alongside two brothers, Shaun and Brandon.
A tear tracing down his right cheek, Michael said he has felt considerable guilt over these past two years, because “parents are supposed to protect their kids,” and because he encouraged his son to pursue a military career — much like he did, and his father before him.
Coming back to Trigg County, now seeing all of the memorials in Cadiz and Fort Campbell, and reliving it, he said, keeps the memory of his son — and the eight others — alive.
With her son’s dog tags and photo around her neck, Vicki said she was “really glad” to be back in Trigg County, as she found the ceremony “respectful and honorable, and really nice.”
Not long after it was all over, and the grounds became quiet, she took a phone call with her brother.
Being in Cadiz, she added, puts the tragedy “so much more in her face.”
But it’s a place she, and many others, need to see for themselves.
Bro. Tim Morgan — a U.S. Army soldier, long-time pilot and pastor of Crofton’s Fruit Hill Baptist Church — said the fateful evening brought together all three circles of his life into one difficult moment.
He also noted that everyone experiences not one death, but three: the actual event, the burial, and the final time one’s name is spoken or remembered.
This new memorial, he said, doesn’t allow anyone to forget.
Trigg County Judge-Executive Stan Humphries read the names of the fallen aloud, as yellow roses were handed to the Gold Star families in attendance — many of which came from hundreds of miles away to share their grief, and find comfort through others.
For more than a year, an ad hoc Trigg County Veterans Memorial Park Committee has worked feverishly to make sure this endeavor had a beginning — and it is this same committee that will make sure it doesn’t have an end.
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