This year a Military Service Walk will be erected on Woodruff Riverfront Park, behind the Columbus State University Corn Center for the Visual Arts, in Columbus, Georgia.  The purpose of the Military Service Walk is to demonstrate the sacrifices made by military men and women, and their families. The Walk will feature displays of correspondence to and from members of the U.S. Armed Forces who have paid the ultimate sacrifice for their country. 

Organizers are asking military members, their families, and the public to submit correspondence from their personal archives to this project. The correspondence can be to or from members of any branch of the U.S. Armed Forces; from any era of conflict, war, or deployment, from the Revolutionary War to present day. The correspondence can include:  letters, journals, telegrams, texts, e-mails, Tweets, chats, Facebook messages, etc.  Correspondence that has a connection to Columbus, Georgia, or to Fort Benning is especially requested. Submissions can be delivered locally to any branch of Columbus Bank and Trust (CB&T) or sent via email to:  [email protected]. 

Each submission should include the following information with a copy of the correspondence: the military member’s name, date of birth, date of death, rank, branch of service, and unit; the submitter's name, phone number, mailing address, e-mail and relationship to the writer; the writer's name; the name of the recipient of the communication and relationship to the writer; what form the communication was (letter, e-mail, Tweet, telegram, etc.), and the country of origin for the correspondence. A privacy release form will then need to be completed.

The Walk began as a project by the 2013 Graduate Class of CSU’s Servant Leadership Program. It has grown to include current CSU students, including active military students stationed at Fort Benning, along with many community leaders. Stuart Rayfield, Director of the CSU Servant Leadership Program, said, “The Military Service Walk will be a place that will evoke emotion and appreciation for the service and sacrifices made by the brave men and women in our military and their loved ones.”