LISBON — Lisbon’s rail trail has a new fixture — a Gulf, Iraq and Afghanistan war monument overlooking the Androscoggin River.

It is the efforts of 17-year-old Girl Scout Alexyss Baird, who recognized the need for a monument in town paying homage to veterans of more current wars, raising funds to have the monument installed.

The project helped her earn her Gold Award Pin, the final achievement in Girl Scouts. When Baird was looking for ways in which she could earn the pin, the American Legion Post 158 commander gave her the idea for the monument, which she felt was a worthy project, she said.

“When you go around town you see all the monuments but you don’t see ones for recent events that happened in the (2000s) or the 1990s, so I thought maybe I could help out with that and bring a load off the American Legion and do a war monument for those people,” Baird said.

Sitting on a granite slab, the monument features a waving United States flag from the front with the inscription “in honor of veterans from the Gulf, Afghanistan and Iraq wars. May we never forget freedom isn’t free.”

Down the spine of the stone and along the side of the flagpole, it features the seals of the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard – something that tends to draw people in as they notice it walking by, Baird said.

“Our theory behind it was making the symbols themselves the flagpole for our country’s flag because they are what keep us standing as a country, is our armed forces,” she said.

On the backside of the memorial, there is a list of the sponsors, along with Baird’s name, who contributed to the projects.

The spot by the river was chosen purposefully to allow people to enjoy the monument as they walk the trails along the river, she said. It is also a way to reclaim an area that some associate with a mass shooter who took the lives of 18 people Oct. 25, 2023, as he came through there while evading police in the days after the incident.

“Putting it here brought meaning back to this place to encourage people to try to come back to a beautiful place like the walking trails here today,” she said.

It is the first of more monuments planned in the area next year, along with an adjacent park called Hero’s Park dedicated to veterans and first responders, she said.

The reaction from members of the community has been positive, with some veterans grateful there is a monument honoring their service, she said.

As the child of military veterans of some of those recent wars, service members are close to her heart, she said.

As an Army veteran of 25 years, Baird’s mother, Heidi Baird, still gets choked up thinking about the person she lost while she was deployed – never forgetting them, she said. She knows firsthand the sacrifices veterans have made in the name of their country – some losing their lives. Looking at the monument, she is reminded of those sacrifices.

The inscription “freedom isn’t free” is something she holds close to her and she wants younger generations to understand the sacrifice and struggles veterans experience, Heidi Baird said.

“We went overseas so that it didn’t come here,” she said.

Knowing her daughter brought this project to fruition, which also honors her own service, makes it a little more meaningful to her personally, she said.

Heidi Baird, also her daughter’s troop leader, helped her pick up truckloads of bottles to help raise funds. Some local business owners donated labor and materials, while others gave money. The project would not have been possible without help from the town. The two American Legion posts in town also donated funds.

Between homework, sports and extracurricular activities, Baird managed the project with help from her troop and the community, she said.

All efforts considered, Baird estimates that it took about $10,000 worth of work and donations to make the project happen, she said. She raised about $5,500 through her roughly monthlong effort.

Baird has become one of the few Girl Scouts who earn a pinnacle — bronze, silver and gold awards. Each award can only be earned at different ages, so earning the pins takes a lot of planning and effort.

Baird started in Girl Scouts at age five when the family was station in South Korea.

Heidi Baird said it was important that her daughter get the most she could out of the experience, so she made sure to give her and other troop members meaningful experiences, including taking them outside the country, working on community service projects and giving them educational opportunities.

Baird thinks Girl Scouts has helped her build leadership skills and given her a knowledge of the world that she can carry with her into adulthood, she said, faculties she hopes to utilize for future aspirations.

She plans to major in criminal justice with a minor in history when she heads to college – though she is unsure of where she wants to go but probably somewhere out of state, she said. One day she hopes to work in the Naval Criminal Investigative Service so she can help solve problems and resolve issues – following in the footsteps of her family’s military service legacy.

As far as the legacy of the monument, she hopes people understand that veterans, recent and past, should be honored and she hopes veterans in the community feel honored by it, she said.

“Recent conflicts or conflicts to come in the future or in the past, they can all be honored and I hope that the veterans in the community understand that they are seen … and they’re not shadowed out by everything else going on in the town,” she said.