The public can pay to help complete and install a bronze statue of a World War II veteran at Tooele’s Veterans Memorial Park on Veterans Day by simply downloading a song.
“Some Gave All” by country music artist J. Marc Bailey can be downloaded from a variety of sites, including jmarcbailey.com, iTunes, Spotify, Amazon and others, said Jon Gossett, president of Life’s Worth Living Foundation.
All money from the downloads will help raise money to complete and install the 13-foot tall statue.
“Life’s Worth Living Foundation is putting in the monument,” Gossett said. “It’s the first monument like this dedicated to the awareness of veteran suicide. … We have given a deposit to the foundry to start construction on the statue, [but] we still need to raise funds to get it in place by Nov. 10.”
Tooele City and the foundation want to raise $50,000 to finish the statue and have it installed.
Bailey said the song he recorded is about the ultimate war sacrifice and was written and first performed by Billy Ray Cyrus after Cyrus spoke with a Vietnam veteran.
“It’s one of my favorite songs,” Bailey said. “I was sitting down in my home studio and was picking out the song when Jon called me. He heard me playing in the background and he came up with the idea for this fundraiser.”
Bailey and Gossett grew up in Orem and have known each other since the second grade. They have kept in contact through the years. Bailey lives in North Carolina and re-established his career as a singer-songwriter two years ago, after working as a promoter for a music company.
“I was playing late one night with some friends out by the pool, and came up with the song ‘Midnight Here in Carolina,’” Bailey said. “It received a lot of hits on social media and got things going for me again after a break in performing. I’m getting back out there and pushing my music.”
Bailey said he patterns his music after Chris LeDoux, a singer who also was a champion rodeo rider from Biloxi, Mississippi. LeDoux died in 2005 in Casper, Wyoming.
“I met him (LeDoux) and became friends with him and played some shows with him,” Bailey said. “His music was a super influence for me. The style is rodeo-style, rock-’n’-roll.”
He said he loves to support Gossett’s Life’s Worth Living Foundation.
“I remember talking to him one night and he was out driving trying to find somebody who had been thinking about suicide,” Bailey said. “Jon has an intense level of passion and concern for what he is doing. Suicide doesn’t get noticed and talked about as much as it should and it is even more of an issue with veterans.”
Gossett said America loses 22 veterans a day to suicide, approximately one every 65 minutes.
“It’s really a big deal that Tooele is getting this statue and setting a precedence that it’s OK to address this hard subject,” Gossett said. “We hope to get vets connected to local resources that can help.”
Bailey said he was in shock when he heard suicide statistics about veterans.
“It’s hard as a performer sometimes to do charities because you want to make sure the money is going to be used for what they say it will be used for,” Bailey said. “But with Jon there are no concerns. He gives and gives and gives and gives.”
The singer from North Carolina returns to Tooele on the Fourth of July for a concert at Aquatic Center Park at 11 a.m.
He performed last December at a benefit concert for the Kathy Hunter family. Kathy’s husband Jim died from suicide in March 2017.
The Fourth of July concert is being paid for by Tooele City, according to Gossett.
Tooele Mayor Debbie Winn said the concert will be a great opportunity to honor veterans and raise money for the statues to be placed at Veterans Park.
The first statue, to be unveiled on Veterans Day, is a replica of a statue now installed in a park at Garden City, Utah, of World War II veteran Robert Caldwell. It will be featured only in two places, Garden City and Tooele. After, it is placed in Tooele, the mold will be destroyed, according to its creator Stansbury Park sculptor Dan Snarr.
The foundation also is working to place a second sculpture at Veterans Memorial Park of a Vietnam veteran, according to the mayor.
Gossett said the foundation hopes to unveil the statue a Vietnam veteran at Veterans Memorial Park by artist Marvin Hitesman in 2019.