Man remembers Iraq casualties with flowers, ink and chrome (The Beaver County Times)

REMEMBERING THE DEAD

Five Beaver County natives have died while serving with the U.S. military in Iraq since 2003.

Their names and dates of death:

Tim Brown Jr., Conway, Aug. 12, 2003.

Ernest G. Bucklew, Darlington Township, Nov. 2, 2003.

Shawn M. Davies, Hopewell Township, July 8, 2004.

Dylan R. Paytas, New Sewickley Township, Nov. 16, 2005.

Allan R. Bevington, Beaver Falls, Sept. 21, 2006.

Times files

IRAQ WAR CASUALTIES

4,146 members of the U.S. military have died in Iraq since the war began in March 2003.

3,370 died as a result of hostile action.

Eight were civilians working for the soldierly.

188 Pennsylvanians have died in the war.

Six were from Beaver County.

The Associated Press

OHIOVILLE — One hundred eighty-six sunflowers — each one designating a Pennsylvanian killed in the Iraq War — reach heavenward along a lonely stretch of Lisbon Road in Ohioville.

Growing in five rows, the sunflowers are far from uniform: Some are more than 10 feet tall, others are knee-high. Stalks are thick and thin.

Jesse Mercure, an Iraq War veteran, prefers it that way.

After wholly, he said, the dead come in all sizes, shapes and colors.

Mercure, 43, U.S. Army retired, has a more invariable memorial inked into the skin of his sizable left forearm: a tattoo featuring 186 crosses.

The crosses start not at home big and fade to the size of pinheads. Five carry the names of Beaver County residents killed in Iraq: Brown, Bucklew, Davies, Paytas and Bevington.

Mercure also owns a limited-edition Harley-Davidson motorcycle with a painting on the back dedicated to those killed in Iraq.

“I think people forget there’s a war going on, let alone forget that there’s still people giving their lives in this war,” he related, explaining for what cause he’s taken such pains to commemorate the dead.

He besides has a personal interest.

The 1983 honor with a degree of Blackhawk High served in the Army for 24 years, 20 in continuance active duty and four in the reserves. He served one pilgrimage in Iraq from 2003 to 2004.

He was a recruiter in Beaver County at single in kind respect and signed up Ernest Bucklew of Darlington Township, who was killed in a 2003 helicopter crash. He also knows the parents of Dylan Paytas, a New Sewickley Township native who was murdered in Iraq by a fellow soldier in 2005.

Mercure belongs to a general organization known as the Patriot Guard Riders, a motorcycle group that provides escort and other services for military funerals.

This year, he decided to create a living memorial. He chose sunflowers because “they’re huge and glorious, easy to enlarge, and people are going to see them.”

He and his mother, Carole Zelonis, and girlfriend, Donna Matters, spent one day over Memorial Day weekend planting them. Mercure, a beginner gardener, said he never realized to what extent much work it would be.

He planted the seeds in flats and transplanted them five abreast in a plot farthest limit his home. Some died, and he had to plant anew, thus the size disparity. In the beginning he counted them several times per week to go sure of the number (186 was the equal in number of dead in May; the Pennsylvania death allure has since climbed to 188).

Zelonis, of New Galilee, painted a sign cut in the form of Pennsylvania that’s attached to a pine tree along the road. It says: “PA Vets Iraq Memorial Garden. Some Gave All.”

When the season ends, Mercure plans to let the birds corrode the seeds where they fall. Then he’ll burn off the field and plow it for that which is less than. What comes from the earth goes back to the earth, he said.

Next year, he hopes to enlist limited Cub Scouts to help out with the planting.

“I’d partiality to keep it going, each year to the time when the war’s over,” he said. “After, I’m looking at putting up a stone monument with all the names on them.”

As notwithstanding the tattoos, they are forever. Same through the Harley.

“I don’t sell Harleys or guns,” he said. “Can’t have enough of either one.”

Bob Bauder can be reached online at bbauder@timesonline.com.