3rd Brigade memorial to Fallen Heroes being installed at National Infantry Museum

The combat unit known as the “Sledgehammer Brigade” will enter the history books when its headquarters is inactivated April 15 at Fort Benning’s Kelley Hill, a piece of ground its soldiers have called home for years.

But those from the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division who gave the ultimate — their flesh and blood and lives — in the line of duty to their nation will not be forgotten. The unit’s Fallen Heroes Memorial is being relocated to The Walk of Honor near the National Infantry Museum and Soldier Center.

It is there, on land where Columbus meets Fort Benning, that the brigade’s memorial will join about 30 other monument tributes to soldiers who have served and sacrificed in defense of democracy and everyday Americans.

“The 3rd Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division is putting a monument up here in April,” Steve McLaughlin, operations chief at the National Infantry Museum, said Wednesday. He oversees The Walk of Honor that is becoming hallowed ground of sorts for troops, past and present, wanting to remain connected in some way to the units that became such a focal point of their lives.

“They’re going to make it,” McLaughlin said of the 3rd Brigade memorial, which is to be dedicated April 14. “I talked to the guy who’s putting the monument in. He’s got the concrete poured up there and he said that they would start cutting on the granite here pretty soon.”

Active-duty soldiers are prohibited from publicly raising money for a new memorial or the relocation of an existing one, said John Hargrove, a Columbus resident and longtime supporter of the “Sledgehammer Brigade” that has deployed many times into combat through the years, either under its current 3rd Infantry Division designation or as a standalone unit once known as the 197th Infantry Brigade.

“My involvement goes back quite a few years. In fact, my son, right after he graduated from West Point, ended up out on Kelley Hill with the Sledgehammer group,” said Hargrove, who is leading the effort to raise the nearly $50,000 it will cost to construct the new memorial and relocate pedestals adorned with names from the current monument dedicated in 2008. The pedestals and the wall now on post have more than 80 names of fallen soldiers — men and women, enlisted and officers — on them.

Hargrove, who is chairman and chief executive officer of Toronto-based Titan Medical, said he and others in the community became concerned about the fate of the memorial and access to it with the 3rd Brigade and its battalions inactivating and casing their colors. A battalion-sized rapid task force has been activated in its place, with about 1,000 soldiers filling its ranks. The brigade’s demise is due to federal budget cuts rippling through the U.S. Army’s force structure.

As the brigade dissolves, Hargrove said it simply made sense to place a memorial to the unit’s fallen heroes at The Walk of Honor, which is maintained perpetually by the National Infantry Museum. He and others have raised money, with some donations from individuals and businesses, along with services offered by companies. A GoFundMe page also has been set up to those who wish to contribute that way.

“We’ll upgrade the stone that they have to meet the criteria of the National Infantry Museum, which really goes more with the granite,” Hargrove said. “I think that is appropriate given the fact that it’s really, to me, a national type of monument.”

McLaughlin said the 3rd Brigade concrete pad that already has been poured is in the shape of a tear drop. There will be a wall of some sort in the back, the three pedestals and a couple of benches, along with something easily recognizing the memorial as a “Sledgehammer” tribute.

He doesn’t know how popular the site will become, although The Walk of Honor typically draws reunion groups and individuals visiting the city. The museum itself is the No. 1 attraction in Columbus, according to travel site TripAdvisor. The 3rd Combat Brigade’s history also is still rather fresh, with the bulk of those whose names are on it having lost their lives from 2003 through 2009, coinciding with the dual wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Our security officers, they’ll find people up there at night just sitting and reflecting. The same thing out here at the wall,” McLaughlin said of the replica Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall set up adjacent to the museum.

The Sledgehammer monument will join the various other stones and statues erected for Infantry regiments and divisions that have served from World War I to the present. Some markers denote nicknames such as the Ramrods, the Red Devils, the Blue Devils, the Polar Bears and the Deadeyes.

Aside from the many, many names on the 30 or so monuments at The Walk of Honor, they also include time-honored passages, such as one from famed World War II journalist Ernie Pyle: “Remember the American combat infantryman. The wind, rain and mud boys. The guys no war can be won without.”

Another dedicated by the Combat Infantrymen’s Association in 2011 simply says: “Freedom has a price the protected will never know.”

This story was originally published March 25, 2016 at 2:26 PM with the headline "3rd Brigade memorial to Fallen Heroes being installed at National Infantry Museum."