'It's remembering': 700 boots form solemn Memorial Day tribute to fallen service members

May 24-Every time Tammie McConkey's flight would touch down to visit her son in the U.S. Air Force, he would greet her with a red rose.

In the 11-and-a-half years since Technical Sgt. Joshua Lowell's death, the image of her handsome, uniformed son holding a single stem still brings her comfort.

"He was a good kid," she said of her youngest. "He loved his God, loved his country, and he loved his family so much, just so much. He's somebody to strive to be."

Each year for his birthday, Memorial Day and "angel-versary," she dutifully leaves yellow roses at his gravesite in Priest Lake.

"I always bring yellow roses because that indicates I'm waiting for you to come back," she said. "I'll get to see you again; when are you coming home?"

On Sunday, McConkey brought her signature yellow roses to the Boots on the Ground memorial display in honor of dead soldiers who served post-9/11 and during the Vietnam War. The display, hosted by the Washington State Fallen Heroes Project outside the Numerica Veterans Arena on Memorial Day weekend, included nearly 700 combat boots. Volunteers affixed each with an American flag and portrait of a fallen soldier from Washington or Idaho as a tribute to them and their gold-star family.

The boots are donated, said Keirsten Lyons, director at the Washington State Fallen Heroes Project who lost son Sgt. Jacob Michael Hess in 2014 in Afghanistan. Some, like the boot bearing her son's photo, were worn by the soldiers themselves.

"There's close to 700 boots out here and think about how many families and friends and schoolmates are behind each one of those pictures," Lyons said. "Just coming in and seeing their face or saying their name, it's remembering. That's important and that means a lot to all of the families that are missing them every day."

For McConkey, who has volunteered with the Fallen Heroes Project for over 10 years, the display is as much about remembering her own son as it is the hundreds of others represented by a boot on Sunday. She recognizes the faces as they reappear each year, often getting to know their family through her volunteer work.

"It's like they're part of your family, too," she said, scanning the leather boots that snaked through the Illuminating Courage Memorial. "You get to thinking, what all did they leave behind?"

When a family loses a loved one in the service, they become part of a somber group known as "gold-star" families, recognizing the sacrifice made by the soldier and their loved ones. It's a badge McConkey would trade anything not to wear, but she feels a sense of obligation to do what she can to ease other mothers' minds when they lose a child in the service.

"You do it because you don't want to forget, and I could never forget, but these kinds of things bring it to the forefront. These are not just people who are gone, " she said. "No, this was a person, this was my son, this was their son, their daughter ... They had plans just like Josh to watch his kids grow and do things. But now he watches from afar."

It's the fourth year the project has put on the Boots on the Ground display, and it has grown each year, Lyons said. She decided to include boots representing Vietnam veterans a couple years back; Lyons said Vietnam veterans were some of the first to take in the display in its first year, when the emphasis was on those who died after 9/11.

She struggled seeing visitors search for faces of their loved ones who fought in Vietnam.

"That really hit home to us as surviving families, that one day that's going to be us," Lyons said. "It's going to be so far removed from our loss that we're not going to go to the places and see ours. That's something that we felt that we could do to honor that generation."

Memorial Day is every day for gold-star families, Lyons said. While she wants people to enjoy their day off, for those families, it's about keeping the memory alive.

Tenderly eyeing each of the photos on the boots Sunday, there's an old saying McConkey finds fitting.

"A soldier or a warrior dies twice; once when they leave this earth and once when we stop saying their name," McConkey said. "We will never stop saying their name."

The Boots on the Ground display will continue through Monday at 5 p.m. Overnight Sunday, the Combat Vet Riders are to watch over the boots in a vigil.

Elena Perry's work is funded in part by members of the Spokane community via the Community Journalism and Civic Engagement Fund. This story can be republished by other organizations for free under a Creative Commons license. For more information on this, please contact our newspaper's managing editor.

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This story was originally published May 25, 2026 at 8:26 AM.