Hawkins Veterans Memorial Honors 1,000 Area Vets

By Lauren Grover
Tyler Morning Telegraph
HAWKINS – Soldiers should be honored, no matter the war or what folks think of the war, says veteran Lt. Col. Herman Peace, a resident of this little town who helped erect a beautiful memorial that’s hard to ignore.
The Greater Hawkins Veterans Memorial was dedicated in 2000 and now bears names of some 1,000 military men and women from Hawkins or Holly Lake. About $100,000 has been raised to dedicate it, add new names to the plaques, maintain the grounds and erect an AH-1 Cobra Gunship helicopter over the pond.
Lt. Col. Peace, who flew 35 missions on B-17s in World War II and the Korean War, said it’s the least the town can do.
“People don’t realize how valuable freedom is — it’s everything,” he said Thursday. “We get up every in the morning and realize we’re way ahead of the rest of the world.”
Plaques on the memorial wall list all wars since the Civil War during which Americans fought, and those honored include U.S. Maritime Service members during World War II who were just recently acknowledged by Congress, Peace said.
“Their part in the war was tremendous, and their losses, some were greater than ours,” Peace said, a retired Air Force pilot.
Retired Col. Jeanette Sterner of the Texas National Guard did the legwork for the Cobra
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