Remembrance Tree honors U.S. military service members

    No one wants to feel lonely or homesick during the holidays. For soldiers serving thousands of miles from home, those are just the feelings they have to deal with when Christmas time roles around. That is why the Washington County Assessor?s office wants to ensure that service men and women are not forgotten this time of year.

    To honor soldiers serving overseas and here at home, the assessor?s office decorates a Christmas tree with the photos of military members who have a connection to Washington. The tree is known as the ?Remembrance Tree? and can be seen in the second floor lobby of the Washington Courthouse. The tree features photographs of members of the armed services along with their name, rank, and branch of service.

    The assessor?s office began the tradition of decorating a tree with soldiers? photos in 2006. Lil Perry, the Washington County assessor, said she learned that Jefferson County had a Christmas tree in its courthouse that was dedicated to honoring soldiers. She liked the idea and talked with her co-workers about doing something similar in Washington.

    ?I have friends from Fairfield who have kids in Afghanistan and Iraq,? said Perry. ?Their pictures were on the tree in Fairfield?s courthouse. I wanted to do something around here for them. Then we started thinking of all the kids from Washington County who are overseas at Christmas, so we decided to decorate one of our own trees.?      

    Once word got out that the assessor?s office was honoring military service members, photos came pouring in. For its first year, the assessor?s office collected approximately 50 photos of soldiers who had ties to the Washington area.

    ?We put it in the lobby of the courthouse so every time someone walked past the tree, they would look and see some of the people they knew who were serving,? said Perry. ?That would make them think of the soldier and maybe they?d say a prayer for them. A lot of the photos we got are people who live in Washington or did at one time, and now they?re somewhere else but mom or grandma still live here.?

    The tree is for service members who are currently serving in the armed forces. Perry said the tree features mainly young people in their 20s but added that there are older men and women in uniform who are on the tree as well.

    ?We were surprised at the number of photos we got of people in their 40s who have made the military a career,? said Perry.

    A few of the soldiers selected asked that their real name be kept off the decoration for security reasons.

    ?Some people wrote names on the decoration that aren?t really their names because putting their name with their picture could cause them a problem,? said Perry.

For the full article, see the Dec. 21 print edition of the Washington Evening Journal.