In the Colvard Student Union at Mississippi State University, passers-by can see a series of nine paintings set up showing the portraits of 26 men.
They stand in groups of two or three against desert backdrops filled with tanks and palm trees. Their faces show them to be young — they range from ages 18 to 33.
The portraits are part of The Eyes of Freedom, a veteran memorial honoring the Lima Company, a reserve infantry unit and one of the hardest hit units during Operation Iraqi Freedom. It will be on display at MSU this week from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. today, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday, and 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Friday.
Ronnie White, who works at the Center for America’s Veterans at MSU, arranged for the memorial to visit MSU after he saw it on display at the University of South Florida.
“It gives our students … who are veterans the opportunity to connect to something they experienced,” White said. “It just helps them heal.”
The memorial has traveled the country since 2011, according to the Eyes of Freedom Memorial director Mike Strahle.
“We want to be a household name eventually just like the Vietnam Wall,” Strahle said. “And that’s where we’re headed.”
History of the portraits
The Lima Co. 3/25 was deployed in 2005. It was an infantry reserve unit from Ohio, according to Strahle, who served with the company. Strahle said most of the men in the unit were from the area around Columbus, Ohio. Their mission in Iraq was to go from house to house looking for insurgent threats.
“We stabilized a whole region that was otherwise in shambles,” Strahle said.
Many of the men in the unit were killed by roadside bombs in 2005. One roadside bomb on May 11 killed six men and injured others, including Strahle. Strahle was recovering in the United States when another bomb killed 14 more men on Aug. 3.
“When losses happened in ’05, it was particularly devastating to Ohio,” said Strahle.
After the deaths of the men from Lima Co. 3/25, Ohio artist Anita Miller decided to create the paintings. She reached out to the families of each of the fallen soldiers and asked for photos to use while painting life-size portraits. Strahle was even more impressed by her courage than he was by her artistic talent.
“I can’t imagine her having her having the courage to make that phone call,” he said.
Now a team of three, including Strahle, takes the memorial around the country and puts it on display. Strahle credits the support of the soldiers’ families, as well as R+L Carriers, the family-owned trucking line out of Wilmington, Ohio, which transports the memorial.
“We don’t do it because of the job, we do it because we love the guys and their families,” Jim Swallen, the team driver and an employee of R+L Carriers, said.
Strahle said it is particularly good for veterans who visit it. The memorial has a healing effect on veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder or other problems veterans might have following combat.
“This memorial has an uncanny way of helping that,” Strahle said.
Strahle himself is one of the people the memorial has affected most. As an exhibitor of the display, he is in charge of talking to visitors and answering their questions. At first it was difficult for him to travel with the memorial and talk about the men the paintings depicted. But now he has become more comfortable sharing the story of his unit’s mission.
“Without even really knowing it, it’s been helping me,” he said.
‘We want them to leave proud’
Beneath each portrait in the paintings is a pair of boots. Some of them have letters stuffed in them — letters soldiers wrote back home or letters which visitors have written since, said Strahle. Small American flags stick out of some of the boots, and dogtags hang from the shoelaces of each pair. Some of the boots are accompanied by hats.
Each portrait also has a candle and a nameplate with a picture of the solider, his name, rank, age, birthday, day of death and hometown. Most of the men were in their early 20s.
“A lot of people are astonished at their ages,” Strahle said.
Strahle feels his job is to tell visitors at the memorial about the soldiers’ mission and what they accomplished in Iraq. He believes the American people should focus not on the losses but on the mission’s successes.
The most common question Strahle gets from visitors is how the Iraqi people felt about the presence of Americans.
“Most of the Iraqi people wanted us there,” he said. “They needed our help.”
One of the other jobs that Strahle takes seriously as an exhibitor is to not let anyone leave the memorial more sad than anything. He wants people to be proud of the men in uniform and thankful for the military. Visitors have an entire range of emotions, he said, from surprise and sadness to pride and thankfulness.
“We want them to leave proud,” he said.
To learn more about The Eyes of Freedom, go to eyesoffreedom.org.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 36 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.