By Bob Strohm
bstrohm@wbcowqel.com
While Galion’s high school gymnasium is usually a place where Tigers’ fans cheer on their home team, this week it has taken on a more somber tone.
Running through Thursday, the Eyes of Freedom Exhibit will be on display in the Galion High School gymnasium and on Friday at Heise Park. The Eyes of Freedom Exhibit is a traveling memorial to the 23 servicemen from Lima Company.
Each of the fallen soldiers of Lima Company is represented in eight murals which were painted by Anita Miller. At the foot of each memorial feature the servicemen’s dog tags and pair of boots. Plaques of each serviceman with a short biography are displayed with their portraits.
1995 Galion graduate Staff Sgt. Kendall Ivy II was among the casualties of Lima Company.
Ivy’s widow LeeAnn was visiting the memorial Tuesday and explained why the exhibit was so important to the families of those it memorializes.
“I’m really, really grateful that they would always keep the guys memorialized this way for the sacrifice that they made for their country, and for our freedoms, and it is nice to see that,” Ivy said. “Even though it has been ten years for a lot of us that they are just never forgotten; they are always alive because they take this around and tell their story, and people get to learn more about these guys.”
Ivy was killed in the line of duty on May 11, 2005.
Galion Principal Ron Williams explained that the memorial coming to Galion was a great opportunity.
“It is amazing it really brings it home for the students and the community.” Williams said. “Kendall is from here and made the ultimate sacrifice, and I think for our students this is a war that they have lived through. So it is more real life to them instead of Vietnam, or World War II. So to come and kind of put faces to names and understand that these guys made the ultimate sacrifice for us as Americans; I think is an amazing opportunity.”
Sean Flaharty who travels with the memorial explained what emotions are evoked from people visiting the memorial.
“We see many different reactions when people come through here, some of it is sad, but that is temporary because when you see something like this on a visual scale your first reaction is, ‘Wow, it must have been bad over there.’ But this ultimately leads to something 
positive,” Flaherty said. “The amount of veterans, especially where we travel outside the state of Ohio where Lima Company is well-known, the amount of veterans that walk in and they see the men that they served with, and they start sharing stories and getting a lot of their negative feelings out, and it makes them feel better once they do that. That is perfect for something like this because how couldn’t you want to take that everywhere.”
The exhibit will be available for public viewing at Galion High School today from 3 to 6 p.m. and from noon to 8 p.m. on Thursday. The truck that carries the exhibit will be on display in the parking lot across from Unckrich Stadium during the Galion Tigers home football game on Friday evening.
For more information, please contact the Galion High School office at 419-468-6500.
The Eyes of Freedom will next be in Phoenix, Arizona, on Sept. 10 as part of that city’s Marine Week.