LUSK – Lusk’s Legion Post No. 4 conducted a cleanup of the Veteran’s Memorial in the Lusk Cemetery Saturday morning. Members of Van Tassel’s Legion Post No. 1 and the Veteran’s of Foreign Wars were also present to aid in the cleanup. 

Commander Jim Thorbjornsen of Lusk’s Legion Post told The Herald, “we discussed different options to address the memorial. We talked about removing it entirely, but decided that it would be in our best interest to keep it. We need to make some changes, though.”

Thorbjornsen said the Legion Post is considering adding additional steps to prevent any accidents or injuries at the memorial. The group is also talking about raising money to install ramps at the memorial as, presently, there are no ramps or easy access points available for disabled persons.

“We just want to clean it up,” said Thorbjornsen.

Nobody at the memorial knew how long it had been since it was built, but knew that it had been up for a significant period. The memorial was erected in honor of Wieten Dupes, a soldier killed in France during World War I. 

“This is the first time that I know of, that anyone has ever made an attempt to clean up the memorial, but it is due,” said Thorbjornsen.

The members of both the Legion and VFW worked tirelessly scrubbing years of dirt, grime and corrosion from the displays. They also reorganized portions of the displays to allow for additions to the boards containing the names of fallen soldiers.