Eyes of Freedom exhibit coming to Chillicothe – Chillicothe Gazette

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CHILLICOTHE - For three days, the community will get the chance to see an exhibit that honors thefallen from Lima Company, whichlost 23 men in Operation Iraqi Freedom, as Eyes of Freedom comes toYoctangee Park.

When the Lima Company, Third Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment (Lima 3/25), lost 23 men it was the most combat losses of any infantry unit since theVietnam war.

Eyes of Freedom features life-sizeportraitsof the 23 Lima Company Marines and Navy Corpsman who lost their lives fighting overseas, although "their eyes reflect the thousands of men and women who have given their lives and served our nation," according to the exhibit website.

The boots of the fallen 23 stand at the base of their portraits, making the exhibit even more personal.

(L-R) Sara Duvall and Johna Pulver check to make sure each boot is paired correctly as they are set up and ready to be presented for the Eyes of Freedom Exhibit on May 5, 2021. Duvall lost her son Corporal Aaron Reed in 2005 due to a roadside bomb. (Photo: Robert McGraw/Gazette)

At the center of the exhibit is a statue of a soldier hunched over, staring at the dog tags of those he has lost.

Executive Director Mike Strahle, a veteran of Lima 3/25, served with the Columbus-basedunit during its deployment to Iraq starting in January 2005.

"Once we hit the ground in Iraq, we were on the offensive, going town to town, house to house, trying to find the insurgency and gather information about who was trying to hurt Americans and who was bullying the local Iraqis there," said Strahle.

On May 11, 2005, Strahle was badly injured when a roadside bomb blew up a vehicle he was in, killing six other men who were also in the vehicle.

He sustained severe injuries from shrapnel to his legs, stomach, chest, and arms as he was thrown from the vehicle. The most severe damage was to his intestines, he said.

On Aug.3, 2005, another roadside bomb hit an amphibious assault vehicle, killing 11 Lima Company marines and three crew, as well as an Iraqi civilian interpreter. Only the pilot of the AAV survived, sustaining severe burn injuries.

This was to be the largest roadside bombing sustained by coalition forces in the Iraq War.

"Suddenly our local unit here in Columbus, comprised of mostly all local guys, mostly Ohio residents, it was front-page news," he said.

Artist Anita Miller heard about the tragedies that befell the company and wished to help the grieving families of the fallen Marines.

Two months later, she awoke in the middle of the night with a vision of the completed memorial standing in the Ohio Statehouse Rotunda. Miller worked for the next two and a half years on her idea, bringing it to life.

"It was really that picture that sort of hovered in front of me, I saw it in the statehouse rotunda - people walking around, looking at the paintings, seeing the candles and the boots and people leaving flowers and notes," she said. "In a flash, the whole thing disappeared and I saw people moving in, dismantling it, and taking it on the road- I thought, oh, a traveling exhibition, that's cool."

On Memorial Day 2008 the Lima Company Memorial was unveiled in the Statehouse Rotunda.

Strahle was present, along with other Lima Company Marines who survived the tour.

By 2011, with the help of Wilmington-basedR+L Carriers, Miller was able to bring the exhibit on the road.

The Silent Battle statue is the centerpiece of the Eyes of Freedom Exhibit.(Photo: Robert McGraw/Gazette)

Miller connected with Strahle at a bike event Strahle was running called Bikes for the Brave, asking if he or any other Lima Company Veteran might be interested in helping to book events.

"It was like a rocket took off," said the Marine veteran. "All of a sudden, each event was leading to more events and just being viewed by the public rapidly was generating our schedule."

The exhibit has done nearly 30 events a year for the last decade, barring last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2018, the Eyes of Freedom exhibit added a tribute to veterans dealing with PTSD, survivor's guilt, grief, and the myriad of trauma resulting from war,in the form of the "silent battle" sculpture.

"At events around the country, we continued to meet with people strongly dealing with and managing PTSD and needing an outlet for their own suicide prevention," Strahle said.

Miller decided to add a physical representation of that struggle and be proactive in engaging veterans who are struggling, connecting them to resources where they can.

"You can tell when you're standing there if people have been touched by suicide," she said. "You can see it in their posture, especially when they embrace the sculpture and break down crying, you can guess that they've lost someone."

Miller said that the pose of the statuewas inspired by a conversation with a veteran, who told her of the unerasable memory of a friend sitting against a wall after a mission, holding the dog tags of friends he had lost.

"He said, if you portray that, you won't need to explain anything," said Miller.

Strahle says he himself struggles with trauma from his time at war. "I don't know that I realized how much I am still actively taking care of those thoughts and taking care of myself until last year when my full-time job, and therapy if you will, was one and the same and taken from us," he said.

The exhibit will be in Chillicothe from Thursday toFriday in theYoctangee Park Armory from 12 to 8 p.m. On Saturday, the exhibit will also be part of a walking tour honoring Ross County residentswho fought and died from the Revolutionary Warto the modern day conflicts.

The walking tour will be held from 1 to 5 p.m. starting at the World War Imemorial at the intersection of Paintand Water streets.

The Joseph Ogle Company, militia reenactors of the Revolutionary War, will demonstrate firearms and speak about the lives of Revolutionary War soldiers. A list of all known Revolutionary War Soldiers will be handed out to visitors. The War of 1812 and the Civil War will be also represented.

Those participating in the tour will then walk toVeteran's Memorial Park on Yoctangee Parkway. Local high school students and members of local veteran's groups will be on hand to present information on those who died in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and Medal of Honor recipients from Ross County.

The information is collected from a book being written by Robert Leach, VFW District 12 commander and a former Colonel with the US Army 75thRangers.

The high school students have been given much leeway in how to present the information, from dressing in period clothing and acting as the veteran in question to simply reading information from a sheet, said Leach.

The tour will concludeat the Yoctangee Park Armory, where the public can view the Eyes of Freedom exhibit free of charge. This stop will also honor the four Ross County residentswho gave their lives in the global War on Terror.

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Eyes of Freedom exhibit coming to Chillicothe - Chillicothe Gazette