Spirit and Choice

The “spirit and choice” of 23 of America’s bravest sons is being remembered over the next several months at the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Triangle.
Eight life-sized portraits depicting 22 Marines and a Navy corpsman that lost their lives in Iraq during 2005 are currently on display at the museum. All were members of Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 25th Regiment, an Ohio-based Marine Reserve Unit once know as “Lucky Lima,” one of the hardest hit single units in Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Artist Anita Miller visited the museum Tuesday and recalled that the Lima Company Memorial, known as a Remembrance of Spirit and Choice, began when she read a newspaper account about the fatalities. She immediately wished their was something she could do for the families of the fallen.
“I saw all those faces and knew those families were going to be going through some awful things,” said Miller. “We’d experienced the loss of children close to us and knew what a parents grief could look like because of our friends.“
Then came a dream that would eventually become “Spirit and Choice.“
“I woke up, I saw the memorial. I saw the boots, I saw the candles,” she said. “It felt like a download more than anything else.“
Miller tried to unsuccessfully push the dream out of her mind, believing she didn’t have the space, money or talent to turn it into a reality. But it kept nagging at her, and Miller eventually got the okay to pursue it from both officials in Ohio and from Lima Company.
Family members and friends of those who died came to Miller’s studio just outside of Columbus, OH, a log cabin built by the Army as an outpost in 1830, to share photographs and stories of those who they had lost.
“With every stroke I painted I could hear them talking in my ear,” Miller said. “I would look forward to going to the studio in the morning because I felt I had the company of 23 brothers.”
Miller financed the work herself.
“I took out a home equity loan so I could add space to my studio. It was what I thought of 24 hours a day,” she said.
It took Miller a little more than two years to paint the 6 x 8 foot portraits that she hopes capture both spirit and personalities of the men she memorialized.
In front of each canvas are the boots of the Marines’ depicted in the painting. One set of boots even has sand inside from Iraq, Miller said.
“We’re remembering their spirit, but we’re also remembering their choice, and that every man and woman that goes into the service, it’s a choice, and that’s the beauty of their story,” she said. “They chose to give their lives for us.
“The guys who came back made the same choice. They would have given their lives.”
The portraits are normally on display at the Ohio Statehouse, but will be at the NMMC for three months.