HELENA — In recognition of the 80th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Helena Scouts held a memorial ceremony at the recently constructed garden in remembrance of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
The ceremony comes right on the heels of the construction of the remembrance garden built by Life Scout Troop #214’s own Zach Heller. Heller recently helped construct the garden as part of his road to becoming an eagle scout. Holding this ceremony was his final step towards earning his eagle scout status. He feels thankful to be able to give back to the community that has given him so much.
“Being able to give back to the community, because they've been so helpful to me and all of my extracurriculars: scouts, robotics. They always give back, they help us, so it makes me feel proud to be part of this community and be able to give them back something too,” says Heller.
The Pearl Harbor memorial service remembered those service members who were ambushed 80 years ago. For every Montana service member killed on that day, Heller rang a bell in their honor.
The flag was raised to half-staff, and a commemorative wreath was placed in the garden by a scout.
One of Heller’s goals in creating this garden is to keep the memory of service members and their sacrifice alive.
“So the never forget garden is an extension of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and they have the honor guard there and one of their phrases is that ‘The veterans never die as long as they're remembered,’ so being able to have a place that people can remember and see this and have something in their mind to be like, ‘Hey, let's remember them,’ it'll keep them alive and make sure they didn't die for nothing in their service,” says Heller.
