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Taylorsville • Dan Nehring scrutinized security clearances during a yearlong deployment in Iraq, missing family birthdays and holidays as he safeguarded others in a war zone.
The troops in Balad, whether out on the roads or at headquarters providing support, were constantly on alert.
"We had to be careful of where we were, when we did things, what we did," the Utah National Guard sergeant remembers.
Now Nehring's sacrifices, as well as those of an untold number of military men and women and their families, are being recognized in a permanent tribute.
At a Veterans Day celebration on Friday, a life-size bronze statue of Nehring will be unveiled, the first of nine figures that will be part of the Veterans Memorial at Taylorsville City Hall.
Although the sculpture represents all veterans, there's no doubt that it's Nehring, down to the patches on his uniform, his wedding ring and the survival bracelet of parachute cord that his daughter made for him.
While posing with an initial clay model, "I actually had my arm around myself," the Taylorsville resident said. "It was quite surreal."
Mayor Russ Wall and city staffers decided several years ago to mark Veterans Day with a program and parade, and the idea evolved into the memorial. At its heart, joyous families will be welcoming home returning soldiers.
It "will be unique in that it honors the veterans but also their families they leave behind," Wall said.
The design, picked in 2010, was created by Justin Wilson, then a master's student in landscape architecture at Utah State University. His former teacher, Brad Taggart, chairman of the visual arts department at Snow College in Ephraim, has tweaked the design and will sculpt all the statues.
Wilson said he wanted to emphasize why people serve in the military.
"What it came down to for me were the people they were protecting," Wilson said. "I wanted to capture the happier moments. I wanted to capture that moment when people are coming home."
Two surrounding walls will display patriotic sayings. A statue of a female Air National Guard pilot will stand in front of one wall, arm around a young girl as if explaining to the child the history behind the memorial.
Nehring's figure will face the opposite wall, pointing at the inspirational words.
Service to country •Nehring, 46, joined the National Guard in 1997, then a building contractor who served the traditional one weekend a month. He became a full-time officer in 2006. His wife, Heather, gave birth two months before he shipped out for training in 1998. When he was in Iraq, she cared for their two daughters and two sons while running a day care center.
In fall 2010, when Nehring came home for two weeks midway through his tour, she crammed in all the celebrations she could: Two birthdays and an early Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Nehring was asked to pose for the memorial by his neighbors, Jean Ashby, a Taylorsville city employee, and her husband, Steve Ashby, who is helping coordinate the project. He posed in May, a week after he returned from Iraq.
"I know there are others who have sacrificed more," he said. "It's quite humbling and exciting at the same time."
The estimated cost of constructing the memorial — which will be on City Hall grounds at 2600 W. Taylorsville Blvd. (5325 South) — is $318,000. Money is still being collected, from private donations and a $100,000 grant from the Utah Department of Community and Culture.
The memorial will include plantings of burning bush that will provide splashes of red during the fall. Government and military flags will be flown at the site, recognizing all branches of the armed forces.
The next figures to be completed will be the little girl and the officer, who is modeled by Rachelle Harris, a Utah Air National Guard lieutenant colonel and former Taylorsville resident.
Harris, 41, now a pilot for United Airlines who lives in Salt Lake City, flew helicopters for the Army National Guard and then for seven years in the Air Guard. She switched to part time service in 2007 and returned earlier this month from a 35-day stint in the Middle East.
She was excited about posing. "There's not many people who can say they've been immortalized," Harris said.
'As perfect as it can be.' • The Nehring statue began with donated work by photographer Kyle Wolf, who took photos of Nehring in two or three poses and dozens of details, including the soldier's hands and the fold of his sleeve. Taggart could see all angles when he viewed the images on his computer.
Taggart then built a maquette, or small-scale model, to determine the final pose. Next, he put together an armature of steel tube, wire mesh and foam to support the sculpture, then began putting clay over it. He first built up the general proportions, then refined the contours with smaller and smaller pieces of clay.
"It's never finished because you never feel completely satisfied with it," Taggart said. "I finally come to the point when I say, 'This is good. I can live with it.' "
He drove the 300-pound clay sculpture from his studio in Ephraim to Adonis Bronze in Alpine, the foundry that is casting all the statues.
The sculpture was divided into several sections, and rubber molds were made for each. After a wax cast was made of each piece, they were dipped in ceramic slurry tanks and then covered in silica sand. The process was repeated until the molds had a 1/4-inch thick ceramic coating.
Once the molds were dry, the wax was melted away and 2,100-degree molten bronze was poured into the ceramic shells.
After the bronze cooled, the ceramic shells were chipped off. The pieces were welded together and grinders or other tools were used to disguise the seams.
Finally, the patina — a dark traditional brown with a green cast — was put on the statue and sealed with wax. The green will intensify as the bronze oxidizes unless the statues get periodic coatings of wax.
Denzil Jenks, Adonis Bronze production manager, said he keeps in mind that "with all artists, this is their baby. The end product needs to be as perfect as it can be."
Taggart will reuse the clay as he sculpts another figure, thinking of servicemen and women who leave their families. "I try to do them justice in clay."
Twitter: @PamelaMansonSLC —.
Veterans Day events on Friday
Taylorsville is holding a parade that begins 11 a.m. at the Fitness and Recreation Center, 4948 S. 2700 West, followed at 12:15 p.m. with a program at City Hall, 2600 W. Taylorsville Blvd. (5325 South), that will include the unveiling of the first statue of a Veterans Memorial.
Eleven Utah veterans will be honored at 11 a.m. in the Olpin Union Ballroom at the University of Utah. Six served in World War II, one in WWII and Korea, four in Vietnam, and one in Desert Storm.
The Utah National Guard 23rd Army Band and Combined Granite School District High School Choir will perform at 7 p.m. at the Jon M. Huntsman Center. The free concert is open to the public. —
Happy birthday to America's Marine Corps
Thursday, Nov. 10, is the anniversary of the founding of the U.S. Marine Corps in 1775.
The Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia, passed a resolution to raise two battalions of Marines as landing forces with the Navy. fleet. Serving on land and at sea, the first marines distinguished themselves in a number of important operations, including their first amphibious raid at New Providence in the Bahamas.
Since that time, the Marines have continued to add to their legacy, playing a vital role in operations around the world, from Iwo Jima to Vietnam, Baghdad and Kandahar. Today, there are more than 20,000 officers and 181,000 enlisted men and women in the U.S. Marine Corps.
— U.S. Census Bureau