Wall of Honor

The Berryville Community Center unveiled a “Wall of Honor” honoring local veterans on Monday, Nov. 10.

Jamie Hussey, director of parks and recreation for the City of Berryville, said he initially had thought of devoting a special place in the community center’s trophy case to honor veterans but the idea quickly expanded.

“Don McClung and Levi Phillips both strongly wanted to have everybody included, not just our Berryville residents but our county residents,” Hussey said. “People that have moved to our town and they’ve lived at other places. It was great to be able to include all those folks.”

The goal, Hussey said, is to fill an entire hallway with photos of local veterans.

“Not just a wall of honor, but a hall of honor,” he said. “I want you to be able to see that vision that will be here for years and years to come.”

Rodney Ballance, commander of American Legion Post 172 in Berryville, said the display of veterans’ photos is a wonderful tribute.

“And what a great way to encourage others to follow in our footsteps when they see people that they’ve known, people that they’ve heard about, people that they’ve recognized in the past serving, maybe give them a little encouragement to follow in our footsteps to come and serve our great nation,” Ballance said.

John Contreras, Carroll County’s veterans services officer, encouraged local veterans to look into benefits that might be available to them and offered to assist in that effort.

“If you served and you have a DD-214, come and see me if you haven’t gotten any veterans’ benefits,” Contreras said. “There’s a lot of veterans’ benefits out there.”

Contreras said he does everything possible to help veterans from Carroll County and elsewhere.

“Carroll County is one of the few counties that has a veterans service office that will accept a veteran regardless of where they live,” he said. “If you come into my office and tell me that you want to get VA benefits, I’m going to do everything I can to help you get that.”

A big part of that, Contreras said, is completing the required paperwork.

“If you’ve ever tried to fill out government paperwork, it’s a pain,” he said. “The VA paperwork is an even bigger pain. But I’ve spent a lot of time studying, training. … I spend a lot of time trying to do that to try to hash out and work my way through for a veteran everything they need to get their VA benefits approved. … Sometimes it takes some research, sometimes they put a lot of work on both my side and the veteran’s side. But if they will come in, I will do anything in the world that I can to help them get a VA benefit.”

After posing for a group photo in front of the Wall of Honor, veterans and others enjoyed a pancake breakfast in the community center banquet hall.