The man behind the Memorial for the Fallen

Tom Scanlon, East Valley Tribune (Mesa, Ariz.)
·6 min read

May 28—At 10 a.m. Monday, May 29, the city of Scottsdale and American Legion Post 44 will host Memorial Day commemoration on the Civic Center Memorial Lawn in front of Scottsdale City Hall.

Next to "The Chaplain" — a bronze statue that has generally honored veterans and their spiritual guides since 2009 — a sturdy new, intensely specific monument will be the focal point.

It did not come easy.

After nearly 10 years, the Scottsdale Memorial Action Committee declared victory: It raised enough money to build and launched the Scottsdale Memorial for the Fallen.

Jim Geiser, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran of Vietnam and graduate of Scottsdale High School and Arizona State University, was a dogged leader of the $300,000 fundraising effort.

In the final phases of the long drive, Geiser died, not quite living long enough to see the finished memorial, which now has a bench that honors him.

This was not his first rodeo. Geiser led an effort to create the ASU Veterans Memorial Wall. After that, he set out to build a memorial honoring Scottsdale residents who died in service to the nation.

The City of Scottsdale supported the effort, including providing a location in front of City Hall. Dozens of community organizations, foundations and private individuals donated for the memorial's construction.

In March 2022, six months before his death, Geiser shared his dream project with the Tribune.

"We try to set something as an example for moms and dads and aunts and uncles to take their kids and show them these are the individuals who gave their lives so we could have the freedoms we have today, we don't want that to get lost," Geiser said.

"It's just something we think needs to be done. It would be my hope that every other city in the state of Arizona would have a monument like this for their fallen, a by-name monument."

His obituary notes he was born Feb. 11, 1947, dying Aug. 30, 2022, at age 75.

Born in Schenectady, New York, he was 10 when his family moved to Arizona, where he later attended Scottsdale High School before graduating with a civil engineering degree from ASU in 1977.

Geiser served 29 years in the U. S. Marine Corps as a "Mustang" officer , climbing the ranks from gunnery sergeant to second lieutenant and finally major.

He served two campaigns in Vietnam.

After returning to Scottsdale, he was an engineer in peacetime; in 2018, Geiser received the Outstanding Civil Engineering Alumni Award from ASU. He was active in the community with the Junior Achievement Program, Valley Big Brother program and Scottsdale Bible Church, where he taught Sunday school.

His driving passion in his last years was the Scottsdale memorial.

Since Scottsdale lacked formal boundaries until it incorporated in 1951, the Scottsdale Memorial for the Fallen includes those who attended Scottsdale high schools but lived in what is now Paradise Valley, the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community and Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation.

The memorial honors those who served in the U.S. Army, Marines, Navy and Air Force — and even one who served in the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War II. Names etched on the granite include three who died in World War I, 25 who lost their lives in World War II, six killed during the Korean War era, 25 who died in service during the Vietnam War and seven who died during conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Scottsdale High classmates Travis Sipe and Clayton Peterson are on the monument after being killed in World War II.

The memorial was quite personal for Geiser: It includes the name of Curt Tarkington, a Scottsdale High classmate of Gesier's who died in Vietnam in 1965.

Names listed on the Scottsdale Memorial for the Fallen, as well each person's date of death

WORLD WAR I ERA:

Henry Herman Rothrock, U.S. Army, Oct. 17, 1918

Albert Ray, U.S. Army, Nov. 8, 1918

Wallace Anton, U.S. Army, Nov. 9, 1918

WORLD WAR II ERA:

Ernest Tobias Montgomery, RCAF, Feb. 10, 1942

Stanley Arthur Crews, U.S. Army Air Force, Oct. 13, 1942

George Washington Hinton, III, U.S. Army, Nov. 28, 1942

Travis Alvis Sipe, U.S. Navy, Feb. 4, 1943

Jack Bascom Tingle, U.S. Navy, Sept. 28, 1943

John Rufus Patterson, U.S. Army, Oct. 1, 1943

Lemuel Miguel, U.S. Army, Dec. 27, 1943

Percy Osif, U.S. Army, Jan. 16, 1944

Joe Clayton Thomas, U.S. Army, Feb. 23, 1944

Clayton Eugene Peterson, U.S. Army Air Force, June 28, 1944

William Pearson Adams, U.S. Navy, July 13, 1944

Phillip Dean Largo, U.S. Navy, July 21, 1944

Charles Alfred Mowry, U.S. Army, Sept. 23, 1944

Fred Washington, U.S. Army, Oct. 1, 1944

Leonard Mitchell Hayes, U.S. Army Air Force, Dec. 24, 1944

John Bruner Whalley, U.S. Army, Jan. 20, 1945

Boyd Hayes, U.S. Army, Jan. 29, 1945

Alfred Ferguson, U.S. Army, Feb. 5, 1945

Alfred Perkins, U.S. Army, Feb. 5, 1945

Herman Clement Juan, U.S. Marine Corps, Feb. 19, 1945

Frederick James, Sr., U.S. Army, May 7, 1945

Simon Kavoka, U.S. Army, May 23, 1945

Willard Smith, U.S. Army, Oct. 5, 1945

Abbott Moore, U.S. Army, Sept. 17, 1946

Jack Tracy Trimble, U.S. Army, Oct. 10, 1949

KOREAN WAR ERA:

Virgil Carmon Hilliard, U.S. Army, Aug. 2, 1950

Ivan Elisha Edwards, U.S. Air Force, Dec. 19, 1950

Gordon Francis Enos, U.S. Army, May 4, 1951

Delmer Roy Manuel, U.S. Army, May 26, 1951

Carl Shelby Lay, U.S. Army, July 16, 1953

Sullivan Richie Manuel, U.S. Army, April 7, 1954

VIETNAM WAR ERA:

William Charles Toth, U.S. Army, Oct. 27, 1964

Bruce Thomas Dumont, U.S. Navy, Dec. 13, 1964

Curtis Ray Tarkington, U.S. Army, Oct. 6, 1965

John Franklin Boyce, U.S. Army, Aug. 15, 1966

Leonard Arvin Enos, U.S. Army, May 25, 1967

Randall Lee Mcintosh, U.S. Army, Aug. 11, 1967

William Eugene Hamilton, U.S. Army, Sept. 29, 1967

William Brooks Kiser, U.S. Army, Oct. 5, 1967

Elgan Leroy Moore, U.S. Marine Corps, Dec. 4, 1967

David John Moncavage, U.S. Army, Feb. 14, 1968

Joseph Laszlo, U.S. Army, March 29, 1968

Gregg Russell Fourmentin, U.S. Marine Corps, April 3, 1968

Donald Ray Hanna, U.S. Army, April 25, 1968

Fredrick Harry Frazer, U.S. Army, Nov 27, 1968

Jack David Carter, U.S. Marine Corps, Mar 25, 1969.

Michael Lynn Biles, U.S. Army, Nov. 16, 1969

Wayne Bennett, U.S. Army, May 17, 1970

Douglas Mead Woodland, U.S. Army, Sept. 26, 1970

Alan George Carlborg, U.S. Army, Sept. 29, 1970

Bruce Polesetsky, U.S. Army, Oct. 4, 1970

Dennis Thomas Darling, U.S. Army, March 20, 1971

David Eric Hall, U.S. Army, Sept. 15, 1972

Peter Kessler Williams, U.S. Marine Corps, May 08, 1973

James Louis Hart, U.S. Air Force, March 21, 1975

Lowell Stephen Powers, U.S. Army, Jan. 8, 1979

IRAQ/AFGHANISTAN WARS ERA:

Eric Francis Cooke, U.S. Army, Dec. 24, 2003

Dominique Jean Bertrand Nicholas, U.S. Marine Corps, May 26, 2004

Clinton Wayne Ahlquist, U.S. Marine Corps, Feb. 20, 2007

Steven Hutchinson, U.S. Army, May 10, 2009

John Michael Rogers, U.S. Army, June 27, 2010

Richard Liam Berry, U.S. Army, July 22, 2012

Joshua Benjamin Silverman, U.S. Army, Dec. 17, 2013