Mike Hodge agonized for months over how best to ensure that the world wouldn’t forget his only son.....
...For Army Sgt. Jeremy Hodge, a 20-year-old killed in 2005 when Iraqi insurgents attacked his convoy in Baghdad, nothing ordinary would do.
So his father spent six months designing a $12,000, 3,300-pound black granite headstone with an almost life-size image of his uniformed son, his M-16 at the ready. Set on the grave in October, the 5-foot-10-inch tall marker looms large atop an otherwise barren hill in a corner of the Rushsylvania Cemetery in Logan County. Its 5-foot-wide base covers one cemetery plot and part of another....
...Hodge constantly gets comments from people who marvel at the intricacy of the details on his son’s marker.
The image of Sgt. Hodge on the front of the stone is remarkable, with a seriousness only a soldier would know captured in the gaze of his hooded eyes. An American flag is draped across his shoulders; his battle-scarred helmet lies on the ground beside him.
"He loved attention," Hodge said as he leaned over and wiped a speck of dirt from the back of the stone. "And after what he did for us, he deserves it now more than ever."Visit the link to see pictures of the monument.
