Memorial Day Tribute Honors Florida's Fallen Heroes

Chopper Davis spent his Thursday morning working with friends Richie Berman and Mike Neff on a memorial display honoring members of the Armed Forces from Florida who were killed in the Middle East.

The display features 146 miniature U.S. flags installed in the yard Davis owns  at the corner of New Port Richey's Madison and Oleander streets. Each flag represents a soldier from Florida who died in the current military campaign in Afghanistan.

Davis is a military veteran who has lived in New Port Richey for decades. He is the former owner of Jilly's Bar on Main Street and now sits on the City Council.

He said he started doing a memorial to veterans about six years ago. He used to include flags for soldiers who died in the conflict in Iraq, but he has retired them. A hand-painted sign in the display does, however, point out that 198 soldiers were killed in Iraq along with the 146 killed in Afghanistan. 

Davis served in the Army from 1970 to 1972. He was stationed at Fort Bragg, N.C., and served in the Signal Battalion for the 82^nd Airborne Division.

Davis' family has a long history of military service. His family moved from England to what would become the U.S. during the Revolutionary War, but they didn’t fight in that conflict. He said the oldest conflict he could find record of his family being involved in was the War of 1812.

Davis' grandfather and grandmother served in World War I. Chopper's father served in World War II, and so did his uncles. His father also served in the Korean War.

Neff is a Navy veteran and Berman served in the National Guard, and they've helped install the memorial with Chopper for years.

Davis started erecting the memorial last decade. He puts it up on Memorial Day and Veterans Day. This current one will be up for about a week, he said.

Davis sad he couldn’t pinpoint the reason he started the display. He noted he’d seen the way Vietnam War veterans were treated without respect.

“I decided I would like to respect the soldiers that we lost in Florida in the Iraq campaign and the Afghanistan campaign," he said. "But now that we haven't lost a soldier in Iraq in the last two years, I've just gone ahead and represented the soldiers that we lost from Florida in Afghanistan."

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