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Veterans Memorial Park in Blaine is a spot of honor and remembrance.
“Once you’ve been shot at and trusted one another in essentially the most highest of stakes conceivable, you simply grow to be fairly shut,” says Eric Bakken, a U.S. Military veteran who served two excursions in Afghanistan.
In a single part of the park is a brand new memorial bench, devoted on Saturday.
It’s positioned right here, in honor of U.S. Military Specialist Eric Finniginam, who was killed in motion on Could 1, 2010.
Bakken says having the 26-year-old as a good friend and comrade in arms “modified the whole lot.”
The household of a fallen U.S. veteran who died in Afghanistan receives his burial flag (KSTP).
He provides ensuring the bench got here to be was a mission of honor.
Throughout a dedication ceremony, Bakken instructed Finniginam’s household — and dozens of assembled army veterans — about his good friend’s dying.
“I’ve by no means felt ache like that ever in my life,” he stated. “One of many hardest issues I’ve ever needed to do in my entire life was to name my mom and inform her that Finn was killed.”
Bakken says Finniginam — or ‘Finn’ to troopers in his unit — was born and raised in Micronesia, within the South Pacific, earlier than he joined the military.
Amid the preventing, the 2 Erics — from reverse sides of the globe — turned finest buddies.
“We stood facet by facet, in firefights, we knocked doorways down. I went proper, he went left,” Bakken recollects. “Firefights, massive missions, it was tremendous intense. And while you undergo all that stuff with one another, one after one other, that’s simply the place the true magic occurs. That bond is simply solidified for all times.”
Throughout leaves — he says he introduced Finniginam again to the states.
Simply weeks earlier than his dying, his good friend turned an American citizen.
Bakken says he was there when Finniginam was killed throughout a rocket propelled grenade assault.
“There’s plenty of survivors guilt,” he explains. “There was a variety of ache. I nonetheless have a variety of ache, and I’ve stated it earlier than, I don’t precisely need it to go away as a result of that’s how I keep in mind him.”
Greater than a decade later, Bakken is honoring his good friend.
Dozens of veterans surrounded Finniginam’s household, who had been flown to Minnesota for the ceremony.
The gathering included a 21-gun salute, a taking part in of faucets — and a folded American flag given to his mom.
“I can’t specific sufficient the way it means for my household and I to be right here immediately,” Maria Finniginam instructed the group. “I’m past blessed with the legacy my son has left behind.”
Bakken says he organized a crowd-funding effort to boost $30,000 for the memorial bench.
He says his mission will not be over — that he needs to honor different members of his unit who made the last word sacrifice.
His thought is to encompass the bench with bricks, etched with the names of the fallen — to allow them to be collectively once more.
Finniginam is laid to relaxation in Micronesia, on the island of Yap, the place he was born.
Bakken now has a legacy of his personal — he’s named his 7-year-old daughter ‘Finley’ in honor of his good friend.
Slowly, the load of his loss is easing, Bakken says — particularly with this remembrance.
“We gave one thing to his household and selfishly, I obtained one thing again, too,” he says. “Sort of like a restored religion within the folks of Minnesota, and I get to present them and be part of one thing so particular. I’m in all probability going to get slightly peace again that’s been taken from me a very long time — and I’m actually grateful to get that peace again.”
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