Members of the Leadership Class 29, a program with the Santa Rosa County Chamber of Commerce, took another step in making the Black Hawk Memorial a reality with a groundbreaking ceremony at the Navarre Park on Friday afternoon.
Following the March 10 tragedy in which 11 service men consisting of seven U.S. Marines and four Army National Guard Soldiers perished, the leadership class immediately took action in raising funds in order to construct a memorial recognizing the fallen military members.
Tony Alexander, a member of the Leadership Santa Rosa Class 29, said the community immediately wanted to assist in remembering those men who died during a training mission near Navarre.
“We have seen a lot of donations from a lot of folks who learned about the cause and wanted to contribute,” Alexander said. “We had a lot of people in the business community reach out to us."
The ceremony also featured sincere remarks from Santa Rosa County Sheriff Wendell Hall and State Representative Doug Broxson.
Deputy Chief Bob Johnson with Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office, who previously served four years in the U.S. Air Force, was among many on scene to assist in the recovery efforts following the helicopter crash on March 10. As a veteran, Johnson said the incident will be one event which he will never forget.
“All of these training exercises that we see every day, we take for granted. You don’t see any danger involved until something horrific like this happens,” Johnson said.
Johnson recalls working the scene with the sheriff’s office as “the worst two weeks of his life.”
“It was terrible,” Johnson said. “You think about a lot of things when you are doing something as horrific as body recovery, you think about the families and them having to be told about their loved ones. It just hits home.”
Johnson said it is fitting the memorial be placed in Navarre.
“Navarre is a military community and we love military,” he said. “Everybody here is prior military or they have children in the military.”
According to Alexander, the memorial is scheduled to be unveiled on Memorial Day, May 30.
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: Leadership Santa Rosa Class 29 breaks ground on Black Hawk Memorial