Ground broken for LWR vets memorial – Lakewood Ranch Herald – BradentonHerald.com

LAKEWOOD RANCH — The symbolic first spade of earth was turned Wednesday at San Marco Plaza for the proposed Veterans Memorial Park.

Organizers hope to dedicate the completed park on Veterans Day, Nov. 11.

George Johnston, commander of Braden River Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 12055, welcomed the launch of the new memorial.

“Like Lakewood Ranch, we’re growing rapidly,” Johnson said. His post, the newest in Manatee County, has about 150 members.

He called the proposed memorial a “magnificent tribute to veterans.”

Johnston quoted from Lt. Col. John McCrae’s World War I poem, “In Flanders Fields,” in which the dead soldiers “speak to us through the poppies.”

Their cry is, “please don’t forget us,” so that their sacrifice will not have been in vain, Johnston said.

Robert A. Moffa of the American Ideals Foundation, a non-profit corporation based in Ruskin, said the purpose of the memorial will be to help the public understand the sacrifices made by veterans.