By: Jingwei Zhao
Seventeen-year-old Dominique Claseman found out that his hometown of Olivia, Minn. did not have a veteran’s memorial. Olivia is a small town and many veterans of war lived there. This led Claseman and his father Mark Jurgensen to make a veteran’s memorial themselves.
Claseman’s father, grandfather, and great-grandfather all served in the military. Claseman himself stated that “It’s just never ending” about his family’s line in the military.
Claseman is an Eagle Scout and his father is the Scoutmaster of his troop. Jurgensen put pressure on his son by telling him that “when he was starting to kind of talk about his Eagle Scout project that because he’s the Scoutmaster’s son that he needs to go big or go home.”
Claseman did research and got ideas by going into other towns that had veteran’s memorials. After he finished planning the memorial, he started a fundraiser to get the money. Digital communication was not allowed in Eagle Scouts, so Claseman had to either pass it from mouth-to-mouth or by using posters.
Claseman originally assumed that the project would take $15,000 to build, but the fundraiser raised exactly $77,777. This led Claseman to build an even bigger memorial than he expected. The finished veteran’s memorial was revealed to the town on Memorial Day. His neighbors told Claseman how much they appreciated what he did for the community.
“There’s one person that came up to me and they said that they are so happy to see this. They’ve been living in this town for 10 to 15 years and they were waiting for something like this to even happen,” said Claseman. His favorite part of the memorial is the 21 boot prints, which represent the 21-gun-salute. His father helped him make those by using his combat boots for the boot prints.
“It was nice being able to be part of that. Being a veteran myself, getting that peace out there for other veterans, that their families have a place to go to remember their service or remember their loved ones,” said Jurgensen. Claseman is the one talking to his brothers about what they should do for their Eagle Scout projects now.