The Orange County Veterans Committee held an event last Friday to commemorate the completion of the first phase of the planned veteran’s memorial at the Southern Human Services Center.

The event also corresponded with Veterans Day.

Secretary of the North Carolina Department of Military and Veterans Affairs Larry Hall spoke at the  event about the responsibility that veterans have to make their voices heard.

“We are a part of the community, not apart from the community,” said Hall. “We should never let our communities forget that, and we should never sit down on the job, as we were responsible for building this state and country, and will be responsible for maintaining it and moving it forward.”

Retired US Army Colonel and member of the Orange County Veterans Memorial Committee Fred Black believes that the memorial will help in identifying these veterans in the community.

“We want to know who the veterans are because part of our purpose is to connect people to the services that they are eligible to receive,” said Black. “We think a memorial helps to reinforce that idea because it will bring people who served.”

The memorial will eventually feature a kiosk where visitors can identify themselves as veterans, which will make it easier for them to receive those services.

For more information on the memorial or to make a donation, visit orangecountyveteransmemorial.com.

Related Stories
‹
Takeaways From a Harris-Walz Ticket Now That the Stage Is Set for a Reimagined Presidential Race
Vice President and Democrat Kamala Harris has tapped Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate to take on Republican Donald Trump.
Tyre Nichols Beating Raises Scrutiny on ‘Elite’ Police Units
Written by CLAUDIA LAUER A car with dark tinted windows circles the block a few times before swerving onto the sidewalk. A handful of armed plainclothes police officers jump out and order everyone out of a double-parked car so they can search it, striking terror in the seconds before red and blue lights flash or […]
Biden Sounds Newly Strong Alarm: Trumpism Menaces Democracy
Written by ZEKE MILLER and JOSH BOAK President Joe Biden charged in a prime-time address that the “extreme ideology” of Donald Trump and his adherents “threatens the very foundation of our republic,” as he summoned Americans of all stripes to help counter what he sketched as dark forces within the Republican Party trying to subvert […]
Language Barrier: Immigrant Parents Tell Tales of Exclusion
Written by CLAUDIA LAUER and VANESSA A. ALVAREZ Philadelphia parents who don’t speak English say they’ve long been excluded from parts of their children’s education because of language barriers, an issue that’s only been exacerbated by the pandemic and the return to in-person learning. Parents told The Associated Press stories of students being used as […]
After Ida Soaks Northeast US, Cleanup and Mourning Continues
The cleanup — and mourning — continued Friday as the Northeast U.S. recovered from record-breaking rainfall from the remnants of Hurricane Ida. At least 48 people in five states died as storm water cascaded into people’s homes and engulfed automobiles, overwhelming urban drainage systems never meant to handle so much rain in such a short […]
Virus Surge: Schools Abandon Classes, States Retreat
School systems in Detroit, Indianapolis, Philadelphia and suburban Minneapolis are giving up on in-person classes, and some governors are reimposing restrictions on bars and restaurants or getting more serious about masks, as the coast-to-coast resurgence of the coronavirus sends deaths, hospitalizations and new infections soaring. The crisis deepened at hospitals, with the situation so bad in […]
Philly Shooting Brings Policing, Racism Back Into Campaign
The fatal shooting of another Black man on America’s streets by police — with subsequent unrest — has brought the fraught issues of policing and racism in the nation back to the fore of the presidential election in its closing days. Philadelphia police say Walter Wallace Jr., 27, was shot earlier this week in the […]
Philadelphia Police Shooting of Black Man Sparks Unrest
Police shot and killed a 27-year-old Black man on a Philadelphia street after yelling at him to drop his knife, sparking violent protests that police said injured 30 officers and led to dozens of arrests. The shooting occurred before 4 p.m. Monday as officers responded to a report of a person with a weapon, police […]
6 Police Shot in Standoff that 'Could Have Been Far Worse'
A gunman holed up for 7½ hours in a Philadelphia rowhouse, firing on police and wounding six in a dramatic standoff that trapped two officers inside all while the commissioner and his attorney tried to negotiate his surrender. Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross expressed amazement that the standoff, which began Wednesday when officers attempted to […]
New Memorial to Celebrate Veterans, Raise Awareness
The Orange County Veterans Committee held an event last Friday to commemorate the completion of the first phase of the planned veteran’s memorial at the Southern Human Services Center. The event also corresponded with Veterans Day. Secretary of the North Carolina Department of Military and Veterans Affairs Larry Hall spoke at the  event about the […]
›