Photos and story by Rick Hiduk
Probably nobody is more disappointed that the Bradford County Veterans Memorial Park at Towanda is not closer to completion than project originator Joe Doherty. That’s not to say that Joe’s efforts and the support thrown behind the park by contributors and elected officials have been in vane or that nothing is done. The project is more than 70 percent finished, but a slowdown in funding has the last phase – actually two important segments – on hold.
Certainly, the arched wall bearing the flags of the military branches and those representing POWs and MIAs, the parking lot used by many people who walk along the Merrill Parkway or fish in the river, and the entranceway with its grand staircase and switchback wheelchair ramp are vast improvements over the weedy lot that preceded them. The elements that have been installed provide solid evidence of the showcase and beautiful anchor to the Towanda side of the Veterans Memorial Bridge that the park can be.
The project came out of the gate with a bang, and the big celebration of the completion of the first phase was a well-attended and truly moving event. Unfortunately, most of the elected officials who routinely made themselves available for photos at the site weren’t as persistent at tapping significant and much-needed funding sources.
Also, at a time that natural gas companies like Chesapeake Energy were dropping giant checks and free vehicles on everybody else’s door step, the Bradford County Veterans Memorial Park Association (BCVMPA) was ignored. Joe has made repeated attempts to involve Chesapeake and other companies reaping millions of dollars from the county. Apparently those donations are all about feeling good in the moment, rather than leaving a legacy. Remember that, once Chesapeake had everything that it really needed from the county, the company all but rolled up the sidewalks to its shiny new headquarters and disbanded its public relations department.
Contrary to the speculation that the scope of the project has increased and therefor the estimated cost as well, no elements – statuary included – have been added to the plans since Joe first started making presentations to the Bradford County Commissioners, the Towanda Borough Council and others. As a matter of fact, Joe explained in response to an email that I sent to him yesterday, the original design “was downsized from ten conflict monuments to six. We also removed a wonderful concept called the ‘River of Tears.’” The proposed water feature proved to be too costly, primarily due to liability issues.
Limited response to the sale of memorial paver bricks to the public for walkways required scaling down of that element from 6,000 to 2,200 bricks. In light of these changes, the projected cost of the project has been has been reduced accordingly.
As a reporter who has been in on the plans for the park since its inception, I will readily admit that it was impossible to fully explain to readers from the beginning just how grand the finished park will be. The beautiful architectural renderings that Joe and other BCVMPA associates carried with them to board meetings and displayed in the quest for donations could never be adequately shared in print versions of the accompanying articles, where space is always at a premium. But the information was always and is still available to the public at www.bcvmpa.org.
Joe fully understood that the majority of potential donors, from business leaders to family members of the veterans themselves, would want to see physical progress before they too invested. It’s logical that people are more impressed by something rising from the ground than the ground breaking ceremony itself.
The first two of three major phases of the project were built as the funds became available. It makes no sense to advance a project of this scope beyond its means, and the park cannot be built without the money in the bank. I can’t help sensing that some would-be contributors are waiting to support a finished product. But this is not like a new bridge or turnpike constructed on loans that can be paid back later via tolls.
BCVMPA members have tirelessly combed the county looking for new funding sources. One of the more clever ideas was to ask each of the 51 municipalities in Bradford County to contribute 10 percent of their allocated Act 13 (Impact Fee) money to the project. Few boards and councils responded favorably to the request, and proud little Alba borough was ridiculed in letters to the editor and comments at the Daily Review’s website after they put up $1,000 of what they hoped would the first of many such donations by their fellow boroughs and townships.
One writer ignorantly lambasted Joe and the BCVMPA for suggesting that residents in these outlying areas be asked to support a “county” project. The fact that the writer actually used the word “greedy” to describe Joe and his committed associates really made my blood boil, as it was unfounded. A lady in Wysox Township shamelessly made a point of telling her supervisors at a public meeting that she didn’t want any money from Wysox Township going across the river. But Joe didn’t let the naysayers deter him.
“Funding for the park was never an easy thing to do,” Joe stated yesterday. “”We have gotten this far by sticking to it.” He contends that if there is anything “slowing down” the project, it’s a lack of volunteers to help with the fundraising efforts.
In my years of reporting on and seeing several truly dedicated individuals figuratively backed up against the wall or standing on a ledge, I have posed the question, “Why don’t you give up?”
“I’m one of the lucky ones,” Joe reasons. “I came home (from conflict) in one piece. I look at the (Veterans Memorial) wall in Washington, D.C. and realize how easily my name could be there. We are a blessed nation, but the blessings and rights we have were paid for by the blood and tears of the men and women of our military. We feel it would be a travesty to allow the memory of the brave Bradford County men and women of yesteryear to be forgotten.”
I couldn’t have laid it out more poignantly, for I have never served in the military nor experienced war firsthand. But I see the countless wounded veterans returning home to an indifferent public, often not receiving the medical and psychological attention that they need. I can only imagine how much more challenging returning to civilian life must have been for those who fought previously wars. The folks in Alba and many others in Bradford County understand what Joe has been telling us all along.
“This park will be completed. I may not see exactly how that will happen,” Joe maintains, in reference to his own immortality. “But I have that burning fever in my heart and the peace of mind to harbor a “knowing” in my spirit that what I (feel and have publicly expressed) is the unvarnished truth.”
Today is Veterans Day. I see a lot of references to it in Facebook and in other media, and it’s heartwarming to see so many people posting pix of the veterans in their families, if not themselves, and expressing their pride.
Pride, however, is a double-edged sword. In most cases, it refers to what we feel about a job well done. But it borders on a haughtiness born of self-righteousness that can blind us to the Godliness that so many of of profess but do not actually employ in our day-to-day lives.
In addition to thanking our living veterans today and remembering those whom we have lost, I’m hoping that Bradford County residents will also give more thought as to how they might help to get the Veterans Memorial Park over the final hurdles. It’s time to bring to fruition to this eventual place of both beauty and reverence that will speak to future generations of the sacrifices made by its citizens through the centuries.
If your personal resources do not permit you to help with the project financially, you can still call or write to your elected officials and let them know that your believe that the Bradford County Veterans Memorial Park is still a worthy project that you want to see finished in your lifetime. Now that Bradford County intends to manage room tax allocations on its own outside of the Endless Mountains Visitors Bureau, the park would be an appropriate and clearly eligible recipient of some of that money.
Veterans Day, like many other holidays, is meant to be a day of reflection. Please keep the park in Towanda in your thoughts and prayers today, and log on to www.bcvmpa.org to learn more.
In a photo taken last spring, Bradford County Veterans Memorial Park Association (BCVMPA) members George Crowell (left) and Joe Doherty flank the forms for the entrance stairway that will take visitors from the parking lot to the main park. That and a handicap-accessible ramp that runs to the right have both been completed.
