Clay High School graduate leads the effort to build the National Mall's newest memorial

On July 14, Scott Stump stood onstage, addressing a crowd of hundreds gathered in a grassy lawn in Washington, D.C.'s National Mall, just steps away from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the Lincoln Memorial.

"Welcome to 2300 Constitution Avenue Northwest, the recently approved address for the future home of the Desert Storm and Desert Shield Memorial here in Washington," Stump, a Desert Shield and Desert Storm veteran and the president of the National Desert Storm Memorial Association, said.

The moment represented the fulfillment of a dream more than a decade in the making.

At the location where Stump stood, in just over two years' time, a large granite memorial evoking the shapes and colors of the Middle Eastern sand dunes where Desert Shield and Desert Storm veterans served in 1990 and 1991 will stand.

After Stump and other distinguished guests finished addressing the crowd, they ceremoniously broke ground on the memorial. A brass band played as they dug their shiny, ceremonial shovels into the soft dirt.

The crowd cheered.

Honoring those who served

Stump's long journey to this groundbreaking ceremony started in 2010, when he found himself reflecting on what was then the 20th anniversary of his service in Desert Shield and Desert Storm.

In 1990, Stump, a 1984 Clay High School graduate, was a Marine Corps reservist and a student at Indiana University. After Iraq invaded the neighboring country of Kuwait that August, Stump was activated to serve and became one of about 700,000 American service members fighting to liberate Kuwait over the next six months.

Nearly 400 Americans died in Desert Shield and Desert Storm. However, it's becoming another forgotten war in that many Americans know little about it, Stump said.

"I realized a lot of people, including my own kids who were about 10, 11 years old at the time, had no recollection of Desert Shield and Desert Storm," he said. "It had kind of been forgotten, kind of like the Korean War, which had been called the 'Forgotten War.'"

In fact, when he met people who had some familiarity with Desert Shield and Desert Storm, they were often misinformed, said Stump, who's lived in Waynesville, N.C., for the past 20 years.

He knows he has to do something to change this and honor those who served with him.

In 2010, Stump established and became president of the National Desert Storm Memorial Association. The non-profit organization is dedicated to fundraising and advocating for the establishment of a memorial honoring Desert Shield and Desert Storm veterans in Washington, D.C.

Denis Burns of South Bend is a Vietnam-era Marine Corps veteran and a close friend of Stump's who has helped him advocate for the memorial. As a volunteer with the American Red Cross and a business owner for many years, Burns has served and employed many Desert Storm and Desert Shield veterans.

"We've got a Vietnam memorial, which is my era, and one for World War II vets and Korea … this (Desert Storm and Desert Shield memorial) is very much needed as kind of a closure for those who served," he said. "Most of the veterans I've talked to are like, 'Yep, we need this. We want it.'"

Russell "Gabby" Pryor of Indianapolis, who served in the navy during Desert Shield and Desert Storm, attended the groundbreaking ceremony and said the memorial "means the world" to him.

"It was overwhelming because we've been working so hard to raise the money to fund this memorial that is going to memorialize and pay tribute to the men and women that served and made the ultimate sacrifice," Pryor said. "I mean, it's just the ultimate rush because it means so much … to me and my heart."

He said he intends to return to Washington, D.C., to see the memorial when it's complete.

Making a memorial a reality

In 2012, Stump partnered with CSO Architects to design the memorial. The Indianapolis-based architectural firm worked on the project concept pro-bono from 2012 until 2016 as Stump worked for Congress to authorize the memorial's construction.

On May 22, 2014, the National Desert Storm and Desert Shield War Memorial Act passed unanimously in the House of Representatives, allowing the memorial to be built on federal land near the National Mall's other war memorials.

“Too often on the news we’re seeing issues in Washington where Congress doesn’t agree on things. But the truth is, there are many bipartisan accomplishments that will have a lasting impact, and this is certainly one of them,” Sen. John Boozman (R-AR), the bill's legislative sponsor, said at the groundbreaking.

The next step was working with government officials to select a location for the memorial. The site selection process, which Stump said typically takes 18 months, began in January 2015. However, Stump's team did not secure a site until more than 39 months later, in June 2018.

"It's right next to the Lincoln Memorial," he said. "It's going to have millions of annual visitors just because of where it's located."

A thank you from Kuwait

In the years following the site selection process, the National Desert Storm Memorial Association has worked to raise more than $40 million to build the memorial.

Fundraising was completed in March, and many donations came from private citizens and organizations, Stump said. A large donation of $500,000 came from the Veteran's of Foreign Wars, VFW, National Headquarters.

By far the largest donation came from the government of Kuwait ― $10 million according to Military Times.

"I feel today that Kuwait and America have come full circle with this memorial," Kuwait's former ambassador to the U.S., Salem Abdullah Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, said from the podium at the groundbreaking ceremony. "It's a very special feeling to me and everybody in Kuwait."

More: Watch the full groundbreaking ceremony here.

Al-Sabah said the memorial, which is planned to be completed by Veteran's Day 2024, will reflect different things to different people.

“For us in Kuwait, it will reflect not only our gratitude to the United States of America, but also the depths of the true friendship and alliance that exists between our two countries,” he said.

Now, Stump's team and the memorial's architects are working on finalizing its design, a process they hope to have finished by the end of this year.

Burns, who's known Stump since shortly after Stump returned home from duty more than three decades ago, said he is incredibly proud of the "heart and soul" Stump has put into making this memorial a reality.

"The story of this young man is just unbelievable," Burns said. "He is like a son to me. I'm 70 years old. I have four daughters and three sons, four including him. To see him … go into this and just not take 'no' for an answer, I mean, he's a hero."

Email Tribune reporter Claire Reid at cereid@gannett.com. You can follow her on Twitter @clairereidjed.

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: South Bend native leads effort to build Desert Storm memorial in Washington