May 27, 2021 at 3:24 p.m.
Special cabin dedicated at Camp American Legion
American Legion Family Cabin a 'legacy' project
Special cabin dedicated at Camp American Legion
While the cabin is dedicated to service members who died while in uniform, it will also be available for use by other military and veteran families.
The day of the groundbreaking, Camp American Legion director Don Grundy said in his opening remarks "we've talking about this cabin since I started here."
"We've been talking about this project a long time and its meaningful on a lot of levels," he added.
Just under two years later, on May 23, 2021, Grundy, who did the initial design for the cabin, presided over the cabin's dedication ceremony.
Following the groundbreaking, he told The Lakeland Times fundraising efforts reached the goal to begin construction in four months and construction began in November 2019.
"It's bringing everybody in to celebrate what we accomplished," Grundy said of the ribbon-cutting ceremony. "I say 'we' because it was the American Legion family. This is the very first project on this entire campus that all of the Legion family and organizations came together to do the underwriting to fund the project."
Among the Legion "family members" he mentioned were the state level Sons of The American Legion, the American Legion Riders and the American Legion Ladies Auxiliary.
"It was everybody coming together," Grundy said, adding that Sunday's ceremony included members of five Gold Star families along with members of state American Legion leadership.
"My goal today was just to share the gratitude," he said. "Not only for all the people who helped pay for the project but more so for everybody who worked on it."
Among them were Grundy's brother, who donated his labor and made several trips from Milwaukee to do the cabin's plumbing, and a veteran friend of Grundy's who did the electrical work for free and also made trips from Milwaukee.
Grundy also spoke highly of the project's main contractor, Frank Coffen of Minocqua, who he said donated his fees and did other work "that wasn't even in his contract."
"I wanted people to see the amount of people involved in building the cabin," he said. "I wanted to express my gratitude to them. Those are the people in this project who matter most to me. Not that the others don't but there's a difference between fundraising for a project and building it."
Grundy said most of the people he brought before the audience for recognition donated something to the cabin project.
"It was like we had the whole band there," he said.
At one point, Grundy got emotional as he was speaking at the ceremony.
"It meant a lot to me," he said. "It meant a lot to me that Joe Merke was there."
Toward the end of his 26 years in the military, Grundy had been a suicide prevention coordinator with the Wisconsin Army National Guard when he received a call that Merke's son, Josh, a friend of Grundy's son, DJ, had taken his life.
"Just remembering, wishing I could take the pain away from them," Grundy said.
Legacy and healing
Grundy said the American Legion Family Cabin is a "legacy project."
"It is, for all of us," he said. "I mean, from how we chose the site to how it was funded to who it was for, the fact we built it with long term, sustainable materials. The feeling of healing around the location ... a huge legacy."
Grundy said it wasn't long ago, within the past 15 years, that Camp American Legion was "for the veteran only."
"This idealism that it's the veteran that needs to heal independently is kind of crazy," he said. "The healing really has to be as a family. Whatever that family looks like for that veteran."
That healing, Grundy said, includes family members of those lost while serving in the military, whether they were killed in action or in some other manner.
"They need a place to know they're not forgotten, that they're always gonna be in our thoughts," he said. "I told them today at the ceremony, we're not going to forget and we're not going to leave you behind. I think the cabin represents that. I know it does. Because it was built for them."
Grundy said that was talked about extensively as the cabin was being built by those working on it.
"You know, you take a break from doing something and you talk about the meaning and significance behind it and who it's for," he said. "When you have the right mission that's going to effect the right people, you can do anything and that's what I said at the ribbon cutting about the camp as a whole. We can do that again and again and again. We can do it 20 times to replace and rebuild the cabins but I don't know that any cabins built in the future will have the significance this one does."
Family healing is something Grundy and his wife, Lillian, take seriously.
In 2005, they lost one of their own children, Ricky, in a drowning accident.
Grundy channels that understanding of grief to families of fallen service members who will be using the new cabin.
"I'm super excited to see people in there and just relax," he said. "Reflecting, healing and maybe learning how to work through that grief. Maybe they're not there yet."
Grundy said he knows families who are five, 10 or 20 years on after losing a loved one and they "still don't know how to work through that grief."
"So, I hope this cabin helps it," he said. "I know it would for my family. I know it would because it would put us at peace."
Brian Jopek may be reached via email at [email protected]
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