This piece of Tri-Cities history had to move after a decade-long legal battle

Bobby Dale Albers knows many of the names etched into the black monolith that sat in his backyard.

Some were friends and some he only knew after they died. The names on the Vietnam War memorial have been a feature at his Finley Road home for years.

After more than a decade of legal battles with his mortgage company, the memorial and flag pole are headed to a storage spot in Prosser.

Lampson International, Pro Cut Concrete and Combat Veterans International members, helped move the memorial and flag pole Friday.

The memorial sat on the Kennewick side of the cable bridge until 2004 when a 51-year-old man slammed his car into it, leaving the edges of the display chipped and a flagpole and fence damaged.

“The city gave me the stone, the base and the flagpole, and we brought it here,” Albers said.

He was part of a group of veterans who rallied after the crash to replace the marker. They raised more than $10,000.

It’s part of a lifetime of effort that Albers has put into helping veterans across the Mid-Columbia, including hosting the local chapter of the Combat Veterans International in a shed at his Finley home.

The disabled veteran served for 16 years in the Army and multiple tours in Vietnam, before returning to the Tri-Cities.

Bittersweet move

The new move for the monument follows a long legal battle with his mortgage company, Nationstar Mortgage.

Albers bought his home more than a dozen years ago with the help of a Veterans Administration loan. The loan changed hands until it ended up with Nationstar.

While the company claimed the payments stopped coming, his son Jeffery Albers contends his dad faithfully paid and kept being hit with fees.

Then, four years ago tragedy struck. A faulty electrical cord on a heating pad started a fire that killed Bobby Dale Albers’ wife, Cathie.

Together, the couple were a driving force helping to organize the Combat Veterans International clubhouse and working with the Columbia Basin Veterans Coalition.

Since her death in October 2016 it’s been hard for him to return to the house, his son said.

And his fight with mortgage company prevented him from putting a trailer on the property to live, according to court records.

“We’re trying to keep his mind off of it, just be here when he needs us,” said his son. “I can count on one hand the amount of times he’s been inside the house.”

Bobby Dale now is staying with his girlfriend in Prosser and has packed up his collection of records and other items from the house that the company is attempting foreclose on.

And it was time the monument was moved and protected.

It will be in storage until Albers can find a new place for it, possibly in West Richland. He hopes city officials can find a spot at Flat Top Park for it.