ADRIAN — In recent years, Oakwood Cemetery in Adrian has become the home of memorials to fallen peace officers and firefighters. Now, what Adrian Monument Co. owner Melody Adams saw as a missing piece — a monument honoring those who have served in the military — has been addressed.

“We just wanted to honor our military and have them represented, because the military had nothing at the cemetery,” she said. And, with children serving both in the military and in law enforcement, the cause is something especially close to Adams’ and her husband’s heart.

The monument, funded by Adrian Monument, was installed on Sept. 17 and dedicated at a Sept. 21 ceremony that included members of the G. Chandler Bond American Legion Post 275 of Adrian and American Legion Riders Post 315 of Brooklyn.

Adrian Monument previously created the firefighters’ Line of Duty Death Memorial, which was unveiled in 2021. Adams’ original intent was to place the servicemembers’ monument next to that memorial and the one honoring law enforcement members killed in the line of duty, near the cemetery’s front entrance.

But they started working with Oakwood Cemetery Superintendent Denny Vescelius on the plan, and according to Vescelius, “we decided that the veterans’ section was logical. Considering what the monument symbolizes, it was fitting to have it in that place.”

And so, the new memorial was placed in the area known as Soldier’s Field, the final resting place for some 200 soldiers, both men and women, officers and enlisted personnel alike, who served in America’s wars from the Civil War forward.

“There’s a lot of history there. … There are soldiers there from all walks of life,” Vescelius said.

While the earliest soldiers’ burials were in that particular section of Oakwood, over time families began burying their loved ones who were servicemembers in other parts of the cemetery. In all, more than 3,000 members of the military are interred at Oakwood, Vescelius said. Some were killed in combat and brought home to be buried; others were veterans.

The four-section granite monument is roughly five feet tall and nine feet wide in all.

Its panels are laser-etched with an American flag, the Pledge of Allegiance, an image depicting the iconic photo of the flag-raising on Iwo Jima during World War II, the emblems of the six service branches, a silhouette of a soldier kneeling by a cross, and a montage of cemetery images including rows of servicemembers’ grave markers, a flag-draped casket on a caisson, and a folded American flag being presented to a family member. The two tallest panels have cutouts that together form an outline of a saluting servicemember.

The memorial rests on a textured-concrete platform created by Vescelius, who handles pouring the concrete foundations for Oakwood’s grave markers. Also on the platform are benches donated by Post 275 and Post 315.

In time, Vescelius said, the American flag that flies over Soldier’s Field will be complemented by flagpoles holding the flags of each service branch.

Adams said she is very pleased with the memorial’s design. “It turned out really nice,” she said.