JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The Veterans Memorial Wall is set to get a big quality-of-life improvement soon.
At a January City Council meeting, members voted to approve a new permanent shade structure at the installation.
It was approved unanimously on January 14th in an 18-0 vote.
The Memorial is the nation’s second-largest Veterans Memorial Wall, second only to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC.
The project is now cleared for $202,381, but city council members believe it will pay for itself within less than 2 years of use.
According to Councilman Chris Miller (At-Large, Group 5), the city was spending more than $160,000 each year to rent a temporary cover for the yearly Memorial Day ceremony at the Wall.
Thousands of Gold Star families, Veterans, local military leadership, elected officials and citizens come to the wall every Memorial Day to honor the fallen heroes whose names are permanently inscribed on the Wall. Everyone named on the Wall died during a time of declared war and lived in or attended school in Jacksonville.
At the meeting, Miller went on to say that this new permanent solution will allow “veterans, military, the different veterans organizations to be able to go to that memorial wall and honor and remember and recognize their loved ones, and do that almost any day of the year, not just on memorial day.”
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