MERIDIAN — Cold November weather couldn’t stop the people of Meridian from honoring veterans on Veterans Day.
According to the Housing Assistance Council veterans data, there are nearly 119,000 veterans in Idaho. Around 37% of them served in the Vietnam War.
Around a hundred veterans and their families huddled together by the Rock of Honor that stands in Kleiner Park in celebration of Veterans Day on Monday, recognizing and remembering people who have served in the United States military.
The Meridian Rock of Honor Memorial has 62 veteran names on it, according to Lisa Lalliss-Skogsberg.
“To have a name on here, you had to have lived in Meridian at one point in your life and served in the military and either passed away from a wound sustained in combat or killed in action,” Lalliss-Skogsberg said, gesturing to the memorial.
Her 26-year-old son, John, is the reason those names are engraved on the memorial.
“It was his Eagle Scout project to do the names,” Lalliss-Skogsberg said. “We wanted to either lay bricks or plant trees in the park, and they said, ‘We need names,’ so he and his troop went to the historical museum and looked through all the newspapers and got the names.”