In the words of Belding Police Chief Dale Nelson, “It’s time to put a new car in the fleet.” At Tuesday night’s Belding City Council meeting at the Pere Marquette Depot, Nelson got his wish as council members voted unanimously, 5-0, on the purchase of a new police cruiser to be used by the Belding Police Department.

What originally began as an effort to resurrect a freedom wall to honor area veterans in Belding has grown into much more in just four short months. By Memorial Day 2012, Denny Craycraft, the Belding veteran spearheading the freedom wall project, is hoping to officially break ground on the first phase of constructing a veterans park in Belding.

The Veterans Freedom Wall, which once stood at the corner of Main and Congress streets until it was decommissioned in 1948, will officially live on in the newly constructed wall located on Depot Street just west of the Pere Marquette Depot in Belding. At 11 a.m. Sunday, Veterans Day, a ceremony dedicating the new wall will take place, unveiling the wall 64 years to the day that the original wall was destroyed.

For several moments Sunday morning, Belding resident and World War II veteran John Geisen stood quietly just a few feet in front of the new Belding Freedom Wall memorial as people shuffled around him. Staring at the newly dedicated wall, built in memory of area WWII veterans, Geisen’s eyes began to glass over with tears. With a deep breath, he then took a few steps closer to the wall.