Path of Honor Memorial in Fort Washakie completed, thanks in part to American Legion Post 81’s efforts.
A memorial more than a decade in the making and spearheaded by the local American Legion post became a reality on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming on Aug. 12. And in doing so, it became what might be the only memorial in the state honoring Native American veterans.
The Path of Honor Memorial in Fort Washakie opened to the public this month and was a collaboration of Richard Pogue Post 81 and the Wind River Development Fund (WRDF). It’s located at the Frank B. Wise Business Center, which is named for the Legionnaire who donated the land and also was a collaboration between the post and the WRDF.
Eastern Shoshone member Lyle Wadda, who has spent 20-plus years as Post 81’s adjutant, said Post 81 was formed by World War II veterans but never had a permanent home – something they spent years trying to find.
The post and the WRDF teamed up to build the Frank B. Wise Business Center in 2007, and then agreed to partner to build a memorial adjacent to the center.
“It was quite a project to get to where we needed to go with this,” Wadda said. “We’ve been working toward this, and when we started we still had several World War II guys with us yet. Most of them are gone now. We still have a couple. This is the goal that we were trying to achieve for these guys that had the original vision (for the post).”
Wadda said Post 81’s members did some fundraising for the project, which cost around $300,000, but did a lot of the groundwork: getting permits and raising awareness about the project – “telling people what we were doing and why it was needed,” he said.
Approximately 900 tribal members from the Wind River Reservation have served in the U.S. military during wartime dating back to World War I. They are honored on four large stones representing four eras of military service: pre-World War 1 and World Wars I and II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and post-Vietnam War. A red path winds through the stones.
“It’s not specifically a Native-American (memorial),” Wadda said. “It’s for all veterans that lived on the reservation: a lot of different people, nationalities, what not.”
The dedication ceremony was attended by Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon, state leaders and even a representative from the U.S. Department of the Interior.
Wadda spoke at the dedication as did U.S. Army veteran Felicia Antelope, commander of American Legion Post 96 in Riverton and a Northern Arapaho Tribal member who deployed to Iraq in 2004.
Seeing the memorial dedicated created “a tremendous feeling to be able to accomplish something like this,” Wadda said. “To see something that the World War II guys wanted … it was just a great feeling that we’re fulfilling those obligations.
- Honor & Remembrance