Local veterans groups are making steady progress on a new public memorial to honor local veterans who served and died in recent wars.

Bobby “Skip” Ferguson, commandant of the Kenney E. Black chapter of the Marine Corps League, is one of the organizers working to erect a memorial to Limestone County’s casualties of the War on Terror on the Limestone County Courthouse lawn.

At the same time, the group is also working to correct a spelling error on the Vietnam memorial.

The new monument and corrected monument will be presented to the public in the spring, Ferguson said. While work continues, the Marine Corps League is continuing to accept donations to finish paying off the artist making the monument, whereas the artist hired for the project offered to correct the Vietnam memorial for free.

“It’s a slow process, but it’s slowly getting done,” Ferguson said Monday.

Ferguson approached the Limestone County Commission in June, asking for permission to put a monument up for three Limestone men killed in action: one in Beirut and two in Iraq.

Like the current Vietnam memorial, the War on Terror tribute will be a 4-foot-long marble slab with a beveled top.

The names of the dead will be placed in order of date and location of their death, Ferguson said, with Maj. William Winter appearing by himself in the Beirut category while Cpl. Adam Loggins and Pfc. Ricky Turner will appear in the Iraq category.

Extra space will be left on the memorial to include any Limestone County soldiers killed in action in Iraq or Afghanistan in the future.

The new Vietnam memorial will remain the same, except “Vieinam” will now read Vietnam. Ferguson said he, like many county residents, wasn’t aware of the mistake for many years. Ferguson said his friend, the late Tony Grigsby, pointed the typo out to him around the same time he went before the commission with the War on Terror project and correcting the mistake became part of the project.

“Nobody seems to know who did the first one,” Ferguson said. “(Grigsby) is the one who got me motivated (to change it). I just wish he was here to see it.”

Grigsby died of a heart attack July 13. He was a longtime member of the Limestone Veterans Burial Guard.

Aside from Grigsby, Ferguson said the corrected monument and the new one will be meaningful for the families left behind by the heroes killed on foreign soil.

“It’s a good thing for the family,” he said. “It also lets everybody know our vets are not forgotten.”

Those interested in donating to the War on Terror memorial can mail a check to the Kenney E. Black chapter of the Marine Corps League, P.O. Box 1216, Athens, AL 35612. Ferguson said the project lacks between $400 and $500.