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RUSHVILLE, ILL. -- Rushville Veterans Memorial Committee finally revealed its hard work Monday and it could not have picked a better time.

Local residents, veterans, and active service men and women all gathered to see the town's new Veterans Memorial.

"It's flattering to be part of this," Officer Jason Goddard of the U.S. Army said. "There's so many people out there, so many heroes that are not here with us today. To be included with any of these people here is just amazing."

Hundreds of Rushville residents gathered at the unveiling of the city's new war memorial. One of those people was Goddard, who spoke at the ceremony as an active duty solider.

"The committee here has done quite the job putting all of this together so I was very honored when they asked if I could assist with this," Goddard said. "The amount of work they put into it we'd gladly assist."

The memorial has been four years in the making and the idea for it was sparked by a simple gesture.

"It began when we were asked if we would be interested in putting our son's name on a memorial that was built in a neighboring town," Dan Phillips, of the The Rushville Veterans Memorial Committee said. "We had no ties to that community so we decided that we needed to have one here in Rushville."

After Phillips got the okay from the city council, he and other residents formed the Rushville Veterans Memorial Committee and as they say "the rest is history" ... something the memorial represents.

"Well it's nice of them to take time and stuff like that but I thought that mostly everyone forgot about us," Harold "Spec" Walters, a World War II veteran said. "It was many many moons ago."

"To honor guys like that, I feel I feel honored to help those people," Goddard said. "The amount of names in there--Civil War, World War I, World War II--people that aren't here today. For us to talk about them today, it's a good feeling to do that."