ROCK ISLAND ARSENAL, Ill. — Researchers at St. Ambrose University are now wrapping up a three year project to honor veterans interred at the Rock Island National Cemetery.
During that time, the team gathered information about 326 veterans and compiled them into individual cards, likening them to a baseball trading card. Each veteran's card includes a photo of them, if it was available, their branch of service, rank, conflicts they served in and a small biography. There's also a QR code that links to a larger website St. Ambrose built with more information about each veteran, like this one for Civil War veteran Harvey Abell.
"We wanted to kind of further memorialize some veterans that are here, highlighting as many as we could," said Natalie Woodhurst, the coordinator of Veterans Recruitment and Services at St. Ambrose.
Their Veterans Legacy Project is part of a larger program through the National Cemetery Administration, she said.
Some of the veterans they researched came from family member recommendations.
"With 25,000 veterans, it's really hard to choose who to pick," Woodhurst said. "So talking with those family members and hearing those stories directly from them was definitely one of the highlights and some of the stories are just so amazing. Everything from being shot down in Vietnam or World War II, to just serving their time and coming home and then doing amazing things once they got back."
The 300 individual cards were put into kits. Now, 500 of those kits will be distributed to upper elementary, middle and high schools around the Quad Cities area for students to learn from.
Moline High School teacher Trent Lamphier will get to use them in his social studies classes. He's still brainstorming how he'll use them in lessons but one idea is matching students with certain veterans each year.
"There's just so much here historically," he said. "That project that they're doing makes it kind of come alive. And they sort of realize, 'Wow, this is a pretty cool place that I live.' and 'I didn't know all this history was right around me.'"
Woodhurst thinks it helps personalize the headstones on the Arsenal. It's also a way to engage younger generations in a visual, easy to learn way.
"Some of these people are from the Civil War that are buried here and they don't have anyone left, so it's very important for us as a community to kind of remember them and make sure those stories live on," she said.