The Veterans Memorial Wall is located at 1145 East Adams Street, adjacent to

TIAA Bank Field TIAA Bank Field is an American football stadium located in Jacksonville, Florida, that primarily serves as the home facility of the Jacksonville Jaguars of the National Football League (NFL) and the headquarters of the professional wrestling prom ...

in downtown

Jacksonville, Florida Jacksonville is a city located on the Atlantic coast of northeast Florida, the most populous city proper in the state and is the List of United States cities by area, largest city by area in the contiguous United States as of 2020. It is the co ...

. The quarter-million dollar monument was dedicated in November, 1995 and serves as a tribute to more than 1,500 Jacksonville area American war heroes. The outdoor memorial was promoted as "the largest of its kind" and "the only wall that honors veterans from all six ervicebranches" (Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Coast Guard and Merchant Marine). The long black granite monument contains the names of servicemen and women from World War I through Operation Desert Storm and the current war on terrorism. In front of the wall stands a torch with an eternal flame. The Wall is the site of the city's Memorial Day ceremony, when any local servicewoman and serviceman who lost their lives in the prior year are honored and their names added to the obelisque. Every Memorial Day since the monument was completed, a group of family, friends and classmates of Navy pilot Scott Speicher gather at the wall. Speicher, who grew up in Jacksonville, was shot down on the first night of

Operation Desert Storm Operation or Operations may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * ''Operation'' (game), a battery-operated board game that challenges dexterity * Operation (music), a term used in musical set theory * ''Operations'' (magazine), Multi-Ma ...

in 1991. His remains went unrecovered until August 2, 2009. When the Wall was built, it was located just from the exterior wall of the Jacksonville Veterans Memorial Coliseum, and extraordinary measures were taken to protect it when the Coliseum was demolished in 2003. When all of the debris was removed and the site restored to grade, the Memorial was surrounded by a walking park. An additional base and panel were added in 2005 to provide space for those killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, but it became clear that the single panel would not be sufficient, based on the course of the war, so one more was added prior to the Memorial Day ceremony in 2010, the 15th anniversary of the monument. Ten names were added in 2010, four of which are on the most recent panel, which brings the total number to over 1,600. Four more names were added in 2014.Gibbons, Timothy J.
"Veterans Memorial Wall expanded, refurbished"
Florida Times-Union, May 27, 2010

References

External links

{{coord, 30, 19, 27.96, N, 81, 38, 25.26, W, display=title Culture of Jacksonville, Florida Military monuments and memorials in the United States Buildings and structures in Jacksonville, Florida Parks in Jacksonville, Florida Monuments and memorials in Florida Tourist attractions in Jacksonville, Florida Sports Complex, Jacksonville 1995 establishments in Florida