Fashioning A Memorial Of Art And Stone

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/05/24/earlyshow/main4125250.shtml

(CBS) On an empty stretch of highway in Iowa, a 12-foot-tall, 56-ton rock gets a fresh paint job every Memorial Day.

It's the "Freedom Rock," and for each of the past ten years, its creator has dedicated a month of his life to covering it with tributes to veterans - a living monument to the troops.



Ray "Bubba" Sorensen was only 19 years old when he first saw the movie "Saving Private Ryan," and decided that patriotism was at an all-time low.

"People think Memorial Day is just a three-day weekend," said Sorensen. "I decided to go out there and paint the rock to say 'thank you' to the soldiers for their freedom and flag-raising."

Three years ago, a group of veterans on their way to the Vietnam Wall Memorial dropped by the site in Adair County and asked to sprinkle ashes there.



Sorensen offered to incorporate them into the paint so that they wouldn't blow away. Everything happened so quickly that he never even got the names of the eight veterans whose ashes now reside underneath his 2005 painting of a helicopter.

FULL story at link.