525th Military Intelligence Brigade Lightning Memorial

A memorial dedicated to the fallen soldiers of the 525th Military Intelligence Brigade has received prestigious recognition among memorial builders. The Lightning Memorial on Lightning Field was created by Bran Oswalt of Brown Memorials in Florence, South Carolina. The monument bears the names of fallen soldiers and a battlefield cross resting under the brigade's insignia. The monument was selected as the Best Civic Memorial in the annual Design Notebook of the Monument Builders of North America. The organization represents more than 500 monument builders in the United States in Canada. The organization received 92 entries to be considered for nine top spots in categories that included civic memorial, family/estate memorial, and ethnic memorial. Oswalt, a fifth-generation counselor at Brown Memorials, traveled to Fort Bragg last year to see the proposed location for the memorial and created a sketch on the drive back to Florence. He followed a new trend of colored porcelain tiles by suggesting one with the unit's insignia for the memorial. Oswalt's idea to use all American materials, including granite from Pennsylvania, appealed to the Lightning Friends and Family Memorial Organization, the nonprofit charity that purchased the memorial. The memorial pays tribute to 67 soldiers who died in support of the 525th Military Intelligence Brigade's wartime operations over 11 campaigns. Most were killed during the Vietnam War, but others were casualties during campaigns in World War II, Korea, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Panama, Desert Storm, Haiti, Balkans, Iraq, and Afghanistan. The Lightning Memorial is believed to be the first memorial for military intelligence soldiers at Fort Bragg. It was unveiled during a ceremony at Lightning Field on May 26, 2016.