East Tennessee Veterans Memorial Association — To Remember, Honor, Educate and Inspire

To Remember, Honor, Educate, and Inspire…

The East Tennessee Veterans Memorial is a public plaza with a formal arrangement of granite pillars bearing the names of 6316 fallen heroes from 35 East Tennessee counties who died in military service during named conflicts since World War I. It was dedicated and officially unveiled November 15, 2008.

The names of the 14 Medal of Honor recipients from East Tennessee are inscribed and honored on the reverse side of the pillars. Quotations related to the wars and national service offer an occasion for reflection and meditation. A bell tower tolls for those lost, and for the four essential freedoms we honor and defend.

Major support for the Memorial has come from Knox County, the City of Knoxville, the State of Tennessee, the Federal Government, and hundreds of individuals, businesses, and groups.

SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 AND AFGHANISTAN

Al-Qaeda operatives hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing them into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, DC. A fourth plane crashed in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Close to three thousand people die in the attacks. Although Afghanistan is the base for al-Qaeda, none of the nineteen hijackers are Afghan nationals. Mohammed Atta, an Egyptian, led the group, and fifteen of the hijackers originated from Saudi Arabia. U.S. President George W. Bush vows to “win the war against terrorism,” and later zeros in on al-Qaeda and bin Laden in Afghanistan. Bush eventually calls on the Taliban regime to “deliver to the United States authorities all the leaders of al-Qaeda who hide in your land,” or share in their fate.

President Bush signed into law a joint resolution authorizing the use of force against those responsible for attacking the United States on September 11. This joint resolution will later be cited by the Bush administration as legal rationale for its decision to take sweeping measures to combat terrorism, including invading Afghanistan, eavesdropping on U.S. citizens without a court order, and setting up the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

East Tennessee and the War in Afghanistan

Twenty-two East Tennesseans died or were killed in Afghanistan. Even though the war spanned almost twenty years, ending in August 2021, some counties like Bledsoe, Blount, and Campbell had no casualties whereas Knox had the most with eight. Here are several stories from different counties comprising East Tennessee:

Franklin N. Watson

Trey F. Porfirio

Jason Dane Hovater

Updates from ETVMA

September 11, 2001 and Afghanistan

The Korean War Seventy Years Later (1953-2023)

“The soldier above all others prays for peace, for it is the soldier who must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war.” —General Douglas MacArthur Of the seven conflicts the ETVMA chronicles and memorializes, one yet remains unresolved with no final peace treaty in place. More than 36,000 American troops were killed […]

The USS Indianapolis and East Tennessee

The infamous sinking of the USS Indianapolis (CA-35) resulted in the greatest single loss of life in American naval history, with approximately 300 crew members going down with the ship and another 580 dying in the water from dehydration, exposure, saltwater poisoning, and shark attacks. Only 317 of its original crew of 1,196 survived the […]

The Memorial

The East Tennessee Veterans Memorial in Knoxville’s World’s Fair Park bears the names of more than 6300 veterans from 35 East Tennessee counties who have died in military service since the beginning of World War I. Those counties are those that comprise the eastern grand division of the state plus Fentress and Sequatchie counties on the Cumberland Plateau.