By John O’Connell

joconnell@journalnet.com

    POCATELLO — Ron Tapia’s road trips throughout Idaho have become quests on behalf of America’s veterans.

    He stops at most of the communities in his path — both big and small — to search cemeteries and the grounds of public buildings.

    In the two years since starting a unique hobby, Tapia has photographed more than 100 veterans memorials throughout the state, and he’s featured his images in two memorial calendars he’s made with his home computer.

    Tapia, who works as the veterans representative for the local office of the Idaho Department of Labor, has discovered tributes to veterans dating back as far as the Civil War to as recently as the conflict in Iraq. He’s tried to photograph a wide distribution of monuments throughout the state, but he knows there are hundreds more left to find and document.

    “I’ve missed a number of cities. I haven’t been in the center of Idaho, and some of my pictures didn’t come out the way I wanted, so I’ll have to go and take them again,” Tapia said. “In western Idaho, as I passed communities, not stopping at all of them, I know I must have missed war memorials along the way.”

    Veterans have always held a special place in Tapia’s heart. As a child in Escondido, Calif., a WWI veteran named Harry Grey served as Tapia’s mentor — Grey bought Tapia, whose family was low income, his first Cub Scout uniform.

    “He was artillery. He would sleep behind the shields of a cannon, and you could hear the bullets ping off,” Tapia said.

    Tapia’s father, Ray, was a WWII veteran who participated in the Normandy invasion.

    “I was pretty proud of that fact,” Tapia said.

    His brother, also Ray, was in the Air Force. And Tapia also served in the armed forces. He quit high school at age 17 to join the Marine Corps.

    “I wanted to go fight in the war and see the world,” Tapia said. “That’s the wisdom of a 17-year-old.”

    He served during the Vietnam War, working as a mechanic on tactical vehicles, and he attained the rank of sergeant. Though he never saw combat, he did get to spend time in Okinawa, Japan.

    Tapia moved from California to north Idaho in 1977 after finishing a six-year tour of duty. In 1992, he moved to Southeast Idaho to work for the Department of Labor, called the Department of Employment at the time.

    His job involves helping veterans find employment, services and benefits. He also assists them in making the transition to the civilian world.

    “I was always interested in veterans things because, of course, of my family,” he said.

    Not surprisingly, Tapia was a key player when a committee started discussions in 1998 to develop a local veterans’ memorial. The expansive memorial, located on South Fifth Avenue, was finished in 2005. Before Tapia’s father died, he bought bricks for the memorial that bear the names of the Tapia family members who served in the armed forces, including Tapia’s son, Brian, who was a member of the Marine Corps.

    Tapia said it was an awesome feeling to see the memorial finally open; he liked that it was located in a place where it would be easily noticed and attract attention.

    “It was more than what we had planned. It’s eye-catching and people stop. It’s larger than a lot. That’s what I see,” Tapia said. “I think it really pays a good tribute to those who have served. I think having it in the city like this, it’s saying the city recognizes service.”

    The Pocatello memorial is featured on the cover of his 2009 calendar. He took several photographs of the local memorial with a basic camera.

    After seeing a book published by the state detailing some of Idaho’s memorials, he got the idea to see and photograph the tributes in other communities.

    “I thought that (book) was interesting, and I’d like to go and see some of them,” Tapia said. “I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be awesome to have my own collection and to see how many they missed?’”

    Mostly, the calendars are fodder for holiday gifts to friends, but he’s also printed some for people who have made special requests for them.

    “People liked them. I didn’t advertise. I’d just share it with people, and they were interested in what I had seen,” Tapia said.

    His 2010 calendar includes photographs of memorials in Moscow, Plummer, Downey, Culdesac, Lewiston, Boise, Burley, Cottonwood, Lapwai, Coeur d’Alene, Mountain Home and Glenn’s Ferry.

    The cover art was taken of a memorial outside the Idaho State Veterans Home in Lewiston.

    It includes a statue of a modern soldier holding a child with an arm in a sling, along with the words, “I am an American,” in oversized letters.

    “It’s a soldier caring for a child. I think that’s what the military does. They’re over there helping people,” Tapia said. “As much as people think they’re over there killing, they’re there to stop the killing.”

    The calendars also note key military dates. For example, on April 6, 1917, the U.S. declared war on Germany in WWI. May 15 is Armed Forces Day. The U.S. Army was established on June 14, 1774. June 14 is also Flag Day. On Oct. 13, 1775, the U.S. Navy was established.

    He routinely searches for memorials after work, on weekends and even during lunch breaks when he’s on out-of-town business trips. Prior to tracking down memorials located throughout the eastern Idaho region, Tapia sometimes calls officials ahead of time and tries to plan a route.

    When he called a city official in Downey to make such an inquiry, Tapia recalls the official was thrilled that someone was interested enough in the community’s memorial to make a special trip.

    “The Downey one I thought was really a nice memorial for that size of a community. It’s the etched granite with a stainless steel eagle on its top,” Tapia said.

    Tapia found about half of the memorials included in his 2010 calendar during a week-long vacation last year, in which he traveled through Boise and western Idaho, stopping at several communities along U.S. Highway 95 en route to Coeur d’Alene. Rather than planning ahead, he and his wife took a “go with the flow” approach.

    “If I saw a little community or town, I’d pull in and start asking people if they had a veterans memorial,” Tapia said, adding he also drove around parks, to courthouses, to city halls and through cemeteries. “Cemeteries on average had one.”

    Not all memorials were simply stone or plaques.

    For example, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Burley featured the shell of a U.S. Army helicopter.

    Some memorials were interesting in their specificity — a memorial he found in a Cottonwood cemetery included just four names under the banner, “In memory of the men from this area, killed in action during WWII whose bodies were not returned.”

    “It recognizes sacrifice and their memories; they’ll always be remembered for their sacrifice,” Tapia said.

    Tapia was impressed by the quality of a monument in Culdesac given the size of the community. It featured a bell, an honor roll of names and the words, “We honor our comrades fighting in the Armed Forces of the United States.” Culdesac, located between Grangeville and Lewiston, has a population of 376.

    “That’s what I really appreciate, seeing those small communities’ (memorials),” Tapia said.

    A small plaque he found in a Bonner’s Ferry cemetery made his radar because of the conflict it recognized, the seldom memorialized Korean War.

    The depth of the content made him think as he photographed a memorial at East City Park in Moscow. It featured a dark, metal statue of a WWI soldier.

    “He’s carrying his rifle. He’s looking around. He has a bayonet on his side,” Tapia said as he pointed to a photograph from his calendar. “You can see that he’s been in combat because he’s carrying a German helmet. It says a lot. It says where he’s been.”

    The inscription reads: “Erected in memory of soldiers and sailors from Latah County, Idaho, 1914-1918, 1939-1945.”

    A memorial in Coeur d’Alene dates even further back in history to the Civil War. It includes a light-gray stone statue of a Civil War sentinel wearing a uniform and holding a rifle.

    The monument is dedicated to “the soldiers and sailors who enlisted to preserve the union from 1861 to 1865.”

    Once Tapia has thoroughly covered the Gem State, he intends to start searching for veterans memorials elsewhere in the country.

    “If there would be a way, I would like to be commissioned to review or find all of the veterans memorials throughout the nation,” Tapia said. “People who have seen my calendars say, ‘Hey, there’s a really neat memorial in Montana,’ or, ‘I was traveling through this state, and I think there’s a memorial you would like to see.’ I think half of the fun is finding them.”

    But as fun as his self-appointed task may be, Tapia also sees a higher purpose for his endeavors.

    “When you’re a veteran, it seems like you’re related to those who have served before you, no matter what the time span has been,” Tapia said.

    “The people’s names that are on these memorials and monuments are a higher honor roll. Those are people who think larger than school, larger than education. They think of their country first, and I appreciate learning how they’ve been honored throughout the state.”