Sculptor offers 'Hope' as monument

Photo by George L. Winship, Editor

Scale Model - Sculptor Carl Turner shows a maquette or scale model of his monument to Vietnam Veterans. A full-size version of the monument is slated for eventual installation at the Northern California Veterans Cemetery in Igo.

Hope.

It’s what all Vietnam Veterans carried with them during each day of every tour of duty, said combat veteran and sculptor Carl Turner, 64, of Jones Valley, who recently designed an imposing monument titled “Hope” for the Northern California Veterans Cemetery in Igo.

Turner is also under commission to design and create an equally striking memorial for the U.S. Air Force that is also destined for the same cemetery.

Designed in bronze to resemble a shell casing fragment, Turner’s Vietnam Veterans Monument will tower 20 feet high, spread 12 feet at its base and feature larger-than-life cutouts of two infantrymen holding a wounded soldier on a makeshift gurney as they wave down a hovering Huey medical evacuation helicopter flying high above the flying bullets.

The stark maquette or scale model of the finished sculpture also contains three very real bullet holes and is encircled at its base by a bas relief of a rice paddy.

“It’s one of the strongest memories that I hold,” said Turner, who served as a U.S. Army infantryman in Vietnam from 1964-1965 and lived that scene for himself.

“You will notice there are no guns depicted on the monument. I didn’t want any guns, but there is the memory of guns in the bullet holes,” Turner noted. “To get those, I had to shoot my own art work,” he added.

The message of hope is evident in the upraised hand of one soldier as the Huey tilts toward the ground from overhead.

“Everyone had hope. This is the essence of hope,” said Turner, who completed the bronze maquette in January.

Turner intends to have the completed full-size sculpture – estimated to have a finished weight of nearly 4,000 pounds – cast in a San Francisco Bay Area foundry early in 2013 with installation at the cemetery in time for Memorial Day that same year.

A site for the monument was approved and Peter James Gravett, California’s Secretary of Veterans Affairs, authorized placement of it at the far northwest corner of the cemetery’s existing boundary.

“It is going to be the largest piece (of sculpture) so far, and it certainly is the most challenging in terms of fundraising,” noted cemetery director Steve Jorgensen.

The complete monument will include a meditation site, a small replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C., and an information kiosk

Between now and the installation, Turner and a growing committee of willing volunteers will be contacting potential corporate sponsors, Vietnam Veteran groups throughout California, individual donors and families of veterans who may wish to memorialize their loved ones, living or deceased, with a granite star engraved with the person’s name, branch of service, years of active duty and other pertinent information, said Mike Wiley, a fellow Vietnam Veteran who did two tours of duty there with the U.S. Navy.

“This is a powerful and emotionally charged piece that will serve as a destination draw for veterans from throughout the state and nation,” Wiley said.

Included in the nearly $500,000 budgeted for the project, Wiley noted that a substantial sum will be set aside as an endowment so the monument’s maintenance does not become a burden for California’s taxpayers.

Donations may be sent to Northern California Veterans Support Group, Vietnam Veterans Monument Account, Northern California Veterans Cemetery, P.O. Box 76, 11800 Gas Point Road, Igo, CA 96047.