AURORA | U.S. Army Sgt. Faith Renee Hinkley surprised her cousin, Sarah Hinkley, when she enlisted in the military in 2007.
Faith Hinkley was a pretty, popular cheerleader at Monte Vista High School in Colorado Springs who was involved in several clubs. She was also brazen. She told her dad she was as capable as anyone else of serving in the military and so she signed up, and was deployed to Iraq in 2009.
On Aug. 7, 2010, at 23 years old, she became the first and only uniformed, female, active-duty soldier to die from Colorado, when insurgents attacked her unit.
In about 100 days, Denver resident Sarah Hinkley will be able to see Faith Hinkley’s name etched on a glass memorial in Aurora’s Springhill Park and remember the legacy her cousin left behind.
Sarah Hinkley and more than 250 veterans, Colorado residents and lawmakers attended a ceremony on Feb. 2 to mark the beginning of the three-month long construction project for the Colorado Freedom Memorial, which has been in the works for more than a decade.
The $700,000 memorial is the first of its kind to commemorate every Colorado resident who died or went missing in every conflict since the Spanish-American War in 1898.
That’s nearly 6,000 names, set to be etched on glass panels that will be erected in the middle of trees, streams of water and vast mountain views. Each of the large glass panels, measuring about 14 feet tall, will be built at an angle to symbolize fallen soldiers.
Northglenn resident Sherri Busch said the Colorado Freedom Memorial will give her a place, besides a somber grave site, to honor her son, Marine Lance Cpl. Andrew Riedel, who died in Iraq at 19 years old. She said she plans to bring her grandchildren to the memorial and tell stories about her son.
“(It will be) a place where I can sit and watch the world and know that all of the men and women who are listed on this memorial probably had a lot in common, but the one constant is that they all loved the United States,” said Busch, who attended the groundbreaking.
The memorial will be built on about four acres of empty land at Springhill Park near East Sixth Avenue and North Telluride Street in Aurora. It was spearheaded by Aurora resident Rick Crandall, a U.S. Air Force veteran and radio show host.
Crandall had the idea to honor the Colorado soldiers in 2000, but during the past decade, several challenges hindered the project’s progress. After 9/11, plans fell by the wayside as the nation was grieving and at the same time gearing up to go to war, Crandall said. The plans were postponed for a few years and then the economy tanked, inhibiting people from donating money.
In May 2012, Crandall finally raised enough money to fund the project.
The memorial was designed by Denver architect, who drew a sketch in 2001 based on Crandall’s idea. The drawing was exactly what Crandall had envisioned.
“It literally hasn’t changed,” he said. “It looks exactly the same as it did the day he opened up his sketchbook and showed it to me.”
Standing in front of hundreds of people at the ground breaking ceremony Feb. 2, Crandall said the memorial will hold a special place in the hearts of people who have lost loved ones to war.
“The Colorado Freedom Memorial is providing all of us an opportunity to make sure we never forget that loss,” he said.
A dedication ceremony for the Colorado Freedom Memorial will be held May 26.
Reach reporter Sara Castellanos at 720-449-9036 or sara@aurorasentinel.com.