148th Fighter Wing Dedicates Memorial Wall to Bulldog Families

DULUTH, Minn. — “This has been a long-time coming, so we’re really happy to honor the families – not only the members who’ve lost their lives, but it’s really important that we acknowledge their sacrifice,” said Chief Master Sergeant Douglas William Ion, with the 148th Fighter Wing. “I’m proud to be part of that.”

After decades of planning, a granite memorial is now complete for the 21 fallen 148th Fighter Wing members outside of their airbase in Duluth.

The names of those 21 fallen 148th Fighter Wing members will be remembered forever after being memorized Wednesday afternoon.

The new memorial wall sits outside of the 148th’s base operations building.

Those 21 names etched in the granite wall will keep the fallen Bulldogs memory alive for centuries to come.

The memorial is dedicated to the families of the Bulldogs who past in the line of duty.

Current Bulldogs present remembering their ties to the wall. Many of those names engraved were never recovered from their time in the service.

“I was just researching some of them, the 21 names on that wall,” said Nash Tahtinen, a senior airmen E4 for the 148th Fighter Wing. “I found with most of them that there’s not a lot of information out there in them. It’s just hard to find, especially with a lot of them being aircraft accidents – which really aren’t documented before 1963.”

“We’re finally acknowledging the sacrifice that these people have given,” said Ion. “Honoring them and their families, and letting the families know they’re sacrifice is not forgotten.”

“I think this will be therapeutic for some of the families, because there’s a couple of families that have lost,” said Colonel Ryan Kaspari, the mission support group commander for the 148th Fighter Wing. “Their family’s members are just lost and never recovered. So, not really sure what you do in that situation, but I think this goes a long way towards giving them a place to at least identify their loved ones and remember them.”