For 34 years Ft. Campbell has honored 248 fallen soldiers from a 1985 peace-keeping mission in Sinai, Egypt. This year, Fort Campbell held a relocation ceremony for the Gander Memorial Tree Park.
In 1985 a crash over Gander, Newfoundland, Canada resulted in the single largest loss of life event in the history of the 101st Airborne Division.
At the time of the crash a 15 year old Canadian girl named Janice Nikkel donated her babysitting money to start a memorial forest for these fallen soldiers. Nikkel said she felt a personal connection to the crash.
“My mom compared the accident to say 10 classrooms at my high school where each person had someone died right before Christmas. All of a sudden it personalized it to me,” said Nikkel, “So that's when I sat down and wrote a letter to our big Toronto newspaper and said I'd like to donate babysitting money to plant trees as a living memorial for these soldiers who died in our country.”
Now, 33 years later, the trees are growing too close together, and their lives are threatened.
So the base has started a new forest. 248 soldiers stand by newly planted maple trees in representation of the Fallen.
Javier Serna flew from Denver, Colorado to attend the ceremony. His brother Ernie died in the crash over Gander. He says the Memorial Garden lets everyone connected to the tragedy know they're not alone.
Serna said, “When this tragedy struck, yeah, we had sorrow but what you also look at is hope that maybe someday we'll have what these guys were tasked to do,keeping peace in a foreign land. They did their job.”
Fort Campbell hosts an annual remembrance ceremony on December 12th, the day of the crash in 1985.
