The Fallen Five:
Marine Sgt. Carson Holmquist, 25Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Randall Smith, 26Marine Gunnery Sgt. Thomas Sullivan, 40Marine Lance Cpl. Squire “Skip” Wells, 21Marine Corps Staff Sgt. David Wyatt, 35
IF YOU GO
What: Chattanooga Heroes Run, a five-mile run/walk event to raise money for the July 16 memorialWhen: Saturday, July 15, 2017Where: The course is a loop that starts and ends near the Naval Operations Support Center and Tennessee Riverpark.
Hamilton County Parks and Recreation officials knew that, at some point, they would need to clear the grassy strip between Amnicola Highway and the Naval Operations Support Center of the flags, flowers and crosses left there by a tragedy-stricken community.
So they placed five flags on the Tennessee Riverwalk guardrail, just across the street from the center, and began cleaning up the thousands of tribute items that had been left in the month that had passed since the July 16, 2015, fatal shootings of five servicemen - Sgt. Carson A. Holmquist, Gunnery Sgt. Thomas J. Sullivan, Staff Sgt. David A. Wyatt and Lance Cpl. Squire K. "Skip" Wells, all Marines, and Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Randall J. Smith.
The flags were meant as a placeholder memorial, Parks and Recreation Director Tom Lamb explained Wednesday.
"We just wanted to make sure everyone understood that, even though all the sentiment and emotion they had placed there was gone, it was not forgotten and that something would be done," Lamb said.
The city of Chattanooga on Friday issued a call to artists across the country, kicking off a process that will lead to the installation of a memorial near the naval center. Project leaders hope the tribute will permanently encapsulate the emotions conveyed by the temporary memorials and offer a reminder of one thing above all else.
"One thing that service members want to see is that we don't forget the sacrifice of the Fallen Five," said Lt. Cmdr. Tim White, who was involved in the exchange of gunfire at the naval center that day. "Also, we don't want to forget the sacrifice of the families. Then, we want to remember how Chattanooga came together as a community."
White is a member of the July 16 memorial steering committee launched by Mayor Andy Berke, which aims to raise $750,000 for the project through grants and donations.
Organizers expect more than 100 artists to apply for the opportunity to design it. Three will be chosen as finalists and supplied with $5,000 of seed funding to develop a site-specific proposal. A selection committee that will include military input and a liaison to the families of the five is expected to choose one of the proposals in October.
Leaders have narrowed the memorial's location to two spots in the Tennessee Riverpark, both just a few hundred yards north of the naval center. One is a wooded, secluded spot along a walking path that juts out from the park's main pedestrian thoroughfare. The other is an airy site next to the river where picnic tables now sit. The selected design team will make the final decision.
Pegged for a formal dedication date of July 16, 2019, the memorial will come alongside other permanent tributes to the Fallen Five. A marker sits just off Lee Highway, near where the shooter's rampage began. A mural on McCallie Avenue depicts each of the five. Other lasting gestures to the men have been made in their hometowns and around the Chattanooga area.
This memorial will be unique, however, in its proximity to the tragedy.
Visitors will be just a few hundred yards away from where 24-year-old Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez fired his deadly shots.
"It's close to the [naval center], but not too close," said White, the center's top official and father of seven. "We like both the primary locations, because they're close to the river, and that's really a naturally peaceful area. It's very accessible to the community, but it's not too close to the busy parts of the park or the [center] to where it would be distracting."
Erlanger hospital donated $15,000 from its first annual Chattanooga Heroes Run, held on the one-year anniversary of the attacks, to provide the seed money to the three finalists, who will be selected in mid-May.
Public Art Chattanooga officials combed through other memorials around the city and the country to share reference points with the steering committee, which has been meeting since last summer.
The hope is to create an experience for the community, said Katelyn Kirnie, the executive director of Public Art Chattanooga.
"It's not just looking at a mural or a sculpture, but we actually want to create a whole space that visitors can come in and have a complete experience that's sensory, powerful, emotional and healing," Kirnie said.
The steering committee's liaison to the families of the five, Kelly Cotton, said the most important thing to the families is that their loved ones and the sacrifices their families have made is not forgotten.
"Having this memorial on Amnicola connects everyone to what happened that day," Cotton said. "You couldn't really get to Amnicola or the [naval center] post-tragedy. This really brings that connection for the families, as well as for Chattanooga."
White said every service member who works at the center thinks about July 16, "probably multiple times a day."
"I think it's going to be helpful to know they aren't the only ones thinking about it, that other people remember," he said. "I'm glad it's not going to be on the [center's] property, so that it's very accessible to the public and to the military members so they can share that in common."
The parcel where the memorial will go is jointly owned by the city and county but managed by the county.
Lamb said there were discussions almost immediately among the county's top officials about establishing a permanent memorial at or near the naval center.
Lacie Newton, Berke's senior adviser, added that people have reached out to the city "since day one" about placing a large-scale memorial in the area.
White also noticed the sentiment of wanting to quickly construct a memorial.
"Some folks have been impatient, saying, 'What's taking so long?'" White said. "The feeling of the committee is that we need to do it right. We shouldn't do it hastily. We shouldn't do it necessarily the cheapest way or fastest way. We want to do it correctly, so that we do something that commemorates how significant that day was and how significant the sacrifice was of, not just the service members, but the families.
"I'm personally very thankful that it's been taken so seriously, that we haven't been rushing it out. The city, county and community are giving it the gravity it deserves."
In the meantime, those five flags will remain on the guardrail, bridging the gap between immediate sorrow and the place of lasting memorial that will soon bring a sense of lasting reflection.
Contact staff writer David Cobb at dcobb@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6249.