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SLIDESHOW: Top of Utah Veterans Day Celebrations
OGDEN -- Veterans Day began early Wednesday with the first whack at breaking from its mold the new tribute bell for the George E. Wahlen Veterans Nursing Home, 1102 N. 1200 West.
Christi Hicks, Farr West, yelled "Hooah!" then "Operation Enduring Freedom, Go Army!" as she stepped up. She swung the gold-painted sledge and made a good-sized dent in the mold.
It took several dozen more hits by members of the audience before it was rubble.
The bell casting Tuesday, and breaking it out of its mold Wednesday, were two of five ceremonies to prepare for the formal opening of the nursing home.
A ceremony Nov. 19 will officially dedicate the home, Utah's second, which was built with a $20 million special appropriation from the Utah Legislature in anticipation of federal funds.
It should start taking in patients next month.
Several hundred veterans, their families and supporters came for Wednesday's symbolic cornerstone laying, breaking of the bell mold and rededication of monuments to Utah's combat wounded and those who served in the battle of Chosin Reservoir during the Korean War.
The day ended with a ceremonial ringing of the bell, which eventually will be mounted in a 30-foot tower.
Melba Wahlen, wife of Medal of Honor recipient George Wahlen, rang the bell for the first time. George Wahlen worked for decades to get the nursing home built, but died earlier this year, too soon to see it completed.
The ceremonial cornerstone laying by the Utah Masonic Grand Lodge included burial of a time capsule holding documents about the Masons and news reports and official letters about the home.
Members of Utah's chapter of the Military Order of the Purple Heart and the Utah Chapter of the Chosin Few rededicated their two monuments, recently moved to the nursing home site from Hill Aerospace Museum.
The monuments list the names of every Utahn the organizers have been able to find who fought at Chosin Reservoir or received a Purple Heart. The monuments were moved because they were about to be displaced by commercial development.
The Verdin Company, of Cincinnati, cast the bell Tuesday using a unique mobile foundry. Dave Verdin, company president, said having children and others in the community help cast the bell and then break it out of its mold makes it represent the community in which it rings.
Most who took a swing at the bell's mold had a personal reason for wanting to do so.
Hicks was celebrating retiring from the U.S. Army after 32 years. Mark Lamb, of VFW Post 1481, said he was hitting it for his son, who just returned from Iraq.
Bryon Lewis, the VFW's state chaplain, swung for "my wife's father, who was killed two months before World War II ended."
Dan Gyllenskog, who was a Marine in Vietnam in 1968 and 1969, said "this is for the 58,261 names on the wall," referring to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C.
Casey Kunimura, of Ogden, who fought with the 442 Regimental Combat Team in World War II, shouted, "This is for all the boys in the 442nd" and knocked out a good-sized chunk.
Paulette Skipper, of Roy, walked up slowly with both an oxygen tank and her husband in tow. She swung the hammer in memory of her brother, "killed in 1968 in Vietnam." He was Garry Rogerson, USMC, she said, and was just 18 when he was killed.
