On a 20,000-square-foot apple orchard tucked behind a chain-link fence, a quiet piece of rural Minnesota has become something far larger than fruit trees and farmland. It has become a living memorial, built from thousands of hand-made dog tags and the determination of a couple honoring those killed in service to their country in Iraq and Afghanistan.
For Linda Hoffmann, the idea started with a search for stillness.
“I was trying to look for a peaceful place, and then I asked my brother, and he said it was fine to end up doing it because he had that big chain link fence around the apple orchard,” Hoffmann says.
That fence, once simply part of her brother’s Christmas tree farm, now carries more than 7,000 dog tags, each one representing a fallen service member. Over nearly a decade, Linda and her husband Mark have transformed the space into a tribute that stretches across all 50 states.
Mark Hoffmann, a retired U.S. Army Special Forces soldier who served 27 years and deployed three times to Iraq, says the memorial became part of his own healing.
“Retired in 2004. So this is a healing process for me. I mean, we were trying to figure out something to do to get back, you know, to remember my comrades and my comrades are on the fence,” says Mark.
Each dog tag was personally made by Mark, turning the project into a labor of remembrance as much as construction. But what he didn’t expect was how the memorial would come alive in another way.
“As the wind blows, you can hear it now, all of these tags chime, and it almost like each one of ‘em was talking,” he says.
He recalls the moment he first realized the sound they would make.
“It just when I was going through all of it and I was putting them up, I was working on New York at the time and a good gust of wind came up and what I had up chimed and I’m like, holy cow, this is amazing,” Mark says.
The memorial is organized by state, with each section telling its own story.
“It’s all the 50 states, and then it has all the soldiers’ names on it, and it has their name, the date they were over there, their rank, the unit they’re at, or the unit that they’re in,” says Linda.
At the top of each state display, an apple tree is etched into the design alongside a battle cross; an emblem tying the orchard back to both agriculture and service. For Mark, a dairy farm kid originally from North Dakota, the connections often feel personal and unexpected.
“When I go through the military times for the state and I’ll come across the name of a comrade or a person I know. And it’s kind of shocking when that happens. I mean, I know it’s going to happen, but I don’t always remember what state they’re from. So when that happens, it’s a thought back. It’s a memory, you know. It was pretty neat for me too,” Mark adds.
The project has been funded through a mix of personal investment and community donations, with ongoing maintenance required to preserve the fence and its thousands of tags as weather and time take their toll.
For the Hoffmanns, the work is far from finished. And they say it won’t end with them. Their son, also a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, is expected to carry the memorial forward when they no longer can.
