The News-Gazette.com: Residents find way to pay tribute to vets

Residents find way to pay tribute to vets

By Meg Thilmony

Sunday, January 14, 2007

When Randy Scott graduated from Rankin High School in 1979, he worked for a while and didn't really want to go to college.

But he wanted to something different, so he joined the Marines, said his mother, Mary Ann Scott.

He was stationed in Beirut, Lebanon, and would've been done in January 1984.

But in October 1983, terrorists bombed Marine barracks at Beirut International Airport. Randy Scott was killed.

"It was really hard," Mary Ann Scott said. "It's still hard."

When she thinks about her son, she remembers his good nature.

"Everybody liked him," she said. "He got along with everybody."

Capt. Scott and 12 other Rankin men killed in various conflicts are memorialized in front of Rankin's library and town hall.

The memorial is a black granite tablet semicircle flanked by two brick columns. The American flag flies on a pole behind the memorial. It was built with money donated after Randy Scott's death, his mother said.

But it's not the only site in town that honors veterans. Resident Maggie Diskin decided the town needed another after watching coverage of World War II's 50th anniversary.

So she and other members of Rankin's Women's Club canvassed the area. They wrote letters to residents, former residents and area businesses asking for donations. And in many of those letters, Diskin asked if residents had served in the military.

More than 500 veterans turned up, and when the memorial was constructed in 1995, more than 500 Rankin residents' names were engraved into the tall black granite structure that sits along Main Street on old railroad property. Four of the memorials five panels are filled with veterans' names, listed alphabetically, with symbols pointing to those who died in combat or were missing in action.

At the center, a bald eagle soars over an American and POW-MIA flag. The memorial sits on a concrete platform between two flower planters and two stone benches.

Rankin's Veteran's Day services are held at the memorial, and Diskin said she sometimes gets letters from travelers who noticed the memorial while passing through town.

"It's important to honor to the people who served this country," Diskin said. "Most everybody in town is proud of it."