University of Montana Fallen Soldier Memorial for OEF and OIF

UM's Fallen Soldier monument dedicated as state’s official Iraq, Afghanistan war memorial
Missoulian News
By Alice Miller
October 26, 2013

Michelle Torres makes a special stop when she comes to Missoula to visit her children and grandchildren.

“When I do come to town, I usually do come and sit and visit with this,” she said, gesturing to the plaque where Travis Arndt’s name is chiseled in stone at the Fallen Soldier Memorial on the University of Montana campus.

“I really miss him,” she said of her son Saturday after a ceremony dedicating the memorial as the official state Iraq and Afghanistan veterans monument.

Torres especially misses her son’s sense of humor. “It can bring down the room.”

Arndt, 23, died in 2005 when an armored vehicle the U.S. Army sergeant was in rolled over in Iraq. The memorial helps her heal after the loss, Torres said.

Forty-two other Montana soldiers’ families and loved ones also lost a service member in Iraq or Afghanistan, and those 43 heroes are immortalized at the memorial, which was unveiled in November 2011.
read more here