7,000 Dog Tags Turn Minnesota Apple Orchard into Powerful and Sacred Memorial

Fri, 22 May 2026 14:49:22 GMT

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.

Family Farm Wins Historic Case After Feds Violate Constitution and Ruin Business

Tue, 19 Aug 2025 18:44:44 GMT

It ranks as a monumental injustice and ruin of an American family.

Seizing on a paperwork violation and over $500,000 in fines, Department of Labor (DOL) agents hounded a fourth-generation farm into collapse, trapping brothers Joe and Russell Marino in nine years of bureaucratic hell.

Denied access to an outside court or jury, the Marinos were subjected to an in-house agency process from pillar to post. Pursuit by DOL agents, enforcement by DOL personnel, trial by DOL attorneys, decision by DOL judge, and approval by DOL appellate judges.

“They took us down a dark, dark hole that I can’t describe properly with words,” says Joe Marino. “I never thought honesty and facts wouldn’t matter in America, but that’s what happened. We were presumed guilty from the start, and it’s shameful what they did to us.”

Shameful, indeed, according to a panel of independent federal judges. In a landmark decision, the Marinos were vindicated after the 3^rd Circuit unanimously ruled DOL’s actions in violation of the Constitution.

“People need to know our whole story because this is how government agencies operate,” Joe says. “The public will be sickened to find out what DOL did. I don’t want this to ever, ever happen to another farmer or small business owner or American. The time for change is right now. It has to be now.”

Beginning of the End
Arriving on U.S. shores from Sicily in roughly 1900, the Marino family carved out a farming operation in Gloucester County, New Jersey. For the next 125 years, from a toehold in dirt to an expanse of 3,000 acres, four generations of Marinos grew vegetables outside Swedesboro at Sun Valley Orchards. No more. Their farm is gone.

Integrated from seed to sale at its peak, and helmed by Joe and Russell, Sun Valley became the largest produce farm in New Jersey, and one of the biggest on the East Coast, growing asparagus, cucumbers, broccoli, cabbage, bell peppers, eggplant, sweet corn, and more. At the heart of crop season, Sun Valley employed approximately 180 seasonal workers and was a hive of industry, with 15-20 tractor-trailer loads of produce per day exiting the facility, bound for the Northeast, South, Midwest, and Canada.

DOL claimed Sun Valley fired its H-2A workers without compensation and stole food money from their pockets.

(Photo by Andrew Wimer, IJ)

Department of Labor (DOL) inspections were par for the course. DOL popped on site in mid-summer to examine payrolls, transport, living conditions, and more clipboard categories, usually wrapping up in less than a day.

“That was our experience with DOL inspections. Basically, they’d give us a few things to repair and we’d fix them immediately,” Joe explains. “As far as how we treated our employees, our workers were invaluable. They busted their asses for us and we thought the world of them. To think we’d later be accused of mistreating any of them was the furthest thing from the truth. But that’s where the whole craziness was headed.”

In 2015, feeling the pressure of a building labor crisis in U.S. agriculture, the Marinos turned to the federal H-2A Temporary Agriculture Worker Program, filling over half their seasonal manpower needs with foreign nationals. Sun Valley’s first H-2A workers arrived in early spring, and as the crop year marched on, DOL, as expected, popped in for an on-site inspection.

However, instead of the typical lone official, DOL arrived with three inspectors. And rather than a day or less, the trio stayed at Sun Valley for roughly four days. “I kept telling my brother, Russ, ‘Something feels off. Something feels different,’” Joe recalls. “It was like DOL knew something we didn’t and had already made up their minds.”

His intuition was in the bull’s-eye. It was the beginning of the end for Sun Valley.

Pay Up or Else
Silence speaks volumes. Typically, DOL provided findings upon completion of inspection, but into fall 2015, DOL did not send the Marinos a report or checklist of corrections. DOL let the entire 2015 season pass without indication of any concerns. In January 2016, DOL brass from Washington, D.C., arrived at Sun Valley’s farm gate in New Jersey.

“They showed up in person, a director from D.C. and two agents,” Joe recalls. “I’ll never forget the scene. They came walking in with hellos, small talk, and stupid little jokes, as if they were conducting some kind of everyday bureaucratic procedure. And for them, maybe it was. For me and my family, it was a life-altering moment.”

“It’s incestuous,” Joe Marino contends. “That’s how all our government agencies operate and maintain power. They play judge, jury, and executioner.”

(Photo by Andrew Wimer, IJ)

Seated in the Sun Valley farm office on opposite sides of a large desk, the tiny space separating two farmers and three federal bureaucrats was chasmic. Minutes beyond a handshake and greeting, the D.C. director dropped a bomb, accusing Sun Valley of mistreating H-2A workers: You owe $550,000 in back wages and civil penalty fines.

“I felt the ground spinning underneath me,” Joe recounts. “One minute they were smiling and asking how we were doing, and the next telling us the results of their inspection showed we had to pay them an incredible amount of money. For our entire lives we worked to be the best farmers we could ever be and carry our family legacy. In an instant, I was numb, stunned, angry, horrified, and shocked, all wrapped together. It was a $550,000 accusation.”

Literally, the federal government had sent agents on-site to Marino’s farm, demanding over a half-million dollars, most of it for a single paperwork violation. Pay up or else.

Kangaroo Court?
In a nutshell, DOL claimed Sun Valley fired its H-2A workers without compensation and stole food money from their pockets.

Back in late spring 2015, when Sun Valley’s first wave of H-2A workers, 17 Mexican nationals, arrived in Gloucester County, the Marinos were preparing to cut asparagus—notoriously difficult harvest labor. In the H-2A paperwork process, Sun Valley’s employment requirements had included asparagus cutting. The 17 prospects all attested to asparagus experience.

Yet, after a single day in the fields, the 17 workers went to Russell and threw in the towel. No mas.

“They told my brother, Russ, ‘Asparagus cutting is not for us. We’re leaving,’” Joe recalls. “Apparently, some of these 17 people had never even been on a farm, and some of them didn’t complete the first day of work. But we were desperate because asparagus grows every day. We talked and talked and tried to reason with them, but they were done.”

“What the hell could we do? We documented the whole deal with advice from our H-2A consultant,” Joe continues. “The 17 signed off saying they wanted to go home and didn’t want to work. They left. We picked up the pieces and kept going.”

However, according to DOL, Sun Valley terminated the 17 workers. Therefore, Sun Valley owed each of the 17 three-quarters of their total work contracts for the crop year—one of several DOL concerns never raised during the onsite inspection, according to Joe.

(When contacted by Agweb regarding the Sun Valley case, DOL referred all questions to DOJ. When contacted by Agweb, DOJ did not respond.)

“The charges were insane,” Joe exclaims. “And then they got crazier. They basically charged us with exploiting food from our own workers.”

During the initial H-2A application process, Sun Valley had a food choice: Give workers a kitchen to self-prepare meals or provide a meal plan. Sun Valley’s H-2A consultant chose the “kitchen” option—a paperwork error, contends Joe.

“There was no sinister food plot,” Joe exclaims. “Our consultant checked the wrong box on the paper. The wellbeing of our workers was vital to our operation and everyone’s success. There’s no way in hell we would steal their food or money. Outrageous and ridiculous.”

Sun Valley workers had long been provided on-site meals cooked by a crew member’s family. DOL already knew this from past inspections, Joe insists. “This was an arrangement for years and DOL inspectors used to rave about the wonderful smells and fantastic food. The crew leader followed all federal guideline pertaining to the meal plan and was able to feed everyone for roughly the DOL-federally mandated $80 per week—a tremendously low-cost deal for our workers. Instead, DOL said we tricked all our H-2A workers, about 96 people, into thinking they’d get a kitchen when they arrived, but instead forced them onto a meal plan. Total bullshit.”

DOL hammered Sun Valley for the meal plan, demanding full reimbursement, along with a $2,400 penalty per person, not only for the 96 H-2A visa workers, but also the additional domestic workers—all to the tune of over $300,000 for ticking the wrong box.

“Again, no mention of this mid-season during the inspection so that it could be cleared up,” Joe notes. “Instead, they let the 2015 season pass and charged us for the entire season. Not to mention Sun Valley never deducted, collected or garnished workers’ wages for food or any other reason”.

“And things only got darker from there,” Joe adds. “Much darker. Guilty until proven innocent. We hired private attorneys and decided to go down fighting, even though we knew it was a kangaroo court.”

Case closed, according to DOL. The Marinos bounced into a fixed government game. No jury of peers allowed to hear the evidence; no independent judge allowed to hear the case. Essentially, DOL fined the Marino brothers $550,000 ($212,250 in civil penalties and $369,703 in back wages) without having to prove anything beyond agency walls.

Move along, folks, nothing to see here. Move along.

Wash, Rinse, Repeat
DOL knew. They knew. If Marino was able to sit before a jury and explain Sun Valley actions, the DOL case might crumble.

“That was the most frustrating thing of the entire affair,” Marino says. “It’s not hard to tell the truth. I wanted to tell a jury with passion and conviction, but the government machine would not let me. I tried so hard to fight and expose DOL. I sent emails to all the big news outlets, politicians, and reporters, but no one in the big media responded. They wouldn’t touch us.”

The Marino brothers were cast by DOL as cruel farmers and unscrupulous businessmen. Yet, for decades, Joe, along with his father, Russell Sr., had served as state ag board members, crop association presidents, township mayors, congressional ag testimony witnesses, and national ag organization participants.

“No one should forget: The Marino family had to close their farm,” says IJ attorney Bob Belden. “Their hardship is not adequately conveyed in a court decision. It’s so good they won, but the toll on them was heavier than words.”

(Photo by Google Earth)

Yet, by DOL edict, the Marinos were instant lepers. “The people that truly knew us knew the truth. But the ag associations and organizations? They ran away. Their assumption? We were charged; therefore, the charges were true; and therefore, we were guilty. DOL made certain nobody outside the four walls of the agency could hear the facts and evidence.”

At a week-long trial in July 2017, Joe and Russell faced the agency machine in a DOL courtroom before a DOL judge who was a former DOL attorney. “It’s incestuous,” Joe contends. “That’s how all our government agencies operate and maintain power. They play judge, jury, and executioner.”

DOL, via video link, allowed testimony from three of the original 17 H-2A workers initially hired at Sun Valley. “What a farce,” Joe says. “DOL used a human rights group rep, posing as a federal DOL agent, to locate three workers in Mexico. The three didn’t have to appear in person, and we couldn’t even see on camera who was off to the side coaching them, and we didn’t know if they’d been promised a payout, and it was outrageous. A Mickey Mouse trial.”

“Through it all, not a single witness said they’d been fired. Didn’t matter. The DOL judge found us guilty anyway, on all counts. I will never forget when the DOL judge read her decision, she wouldn’t even look me in the eye while she made her remarks. I could see it on her face that she knew what she was playing a part in was wrong. I said to myself, “This can’t be America. This can’t happen here,’ but it did and it does.”

What about an appeal? Sure—in DOL appellate court, before another DOL judge. Wash, rinse, repeat.

“That’s the system,” Joe says. “Does anyone really think one DOL judge is going to reverse what their friend in a DOL courtroom just ruled on? They bleed you until you’re all appealed out, and by that time you can finally take it to an outside court, but almost no one has money for that. Through and through, it’s abuse by a government agency weaponized by elected officials.”

Gamechanger
At the bottom of a bureaucratic hole, having spent $180,000 in attorney fees and still facing a $500,000-plus fine, Joe found a lifeline.

“It was a true gamechanger,” he recalls. “A gift from God. We were done until the cavalry showed up.”

The “cavalry” was Institute for Justice (IJ), and when the liberty-loving, legal heavyweight organization caught wind of Sun Valley’s plight, IJ attorneys launched a lawsuit against DOL in 2021.

IJ came out swinging in its initial complaint on behalf of Sun Valley: The enforcement proceeding at issue in this case was initiated by DOL personnel, tried by DOL attorneys, heard and decided by a DOL judge, and then affirmed by a panel of DOL appellate judges.

“The Marinos today; any of us tomorrow,” says IJ attorney Bob Belden . “This case doesn’t need flowery explanations. When people hear the details, they quickly recognize it’s wrong to have government actors trying to take money or property from you as a punishment, and the same government actors getting to decide if you are guilty. That is as un-American as you can get.”

Sky-High Win Rates
In 2021, as Sun Valley’s lawsuit against DOL was launched, another parallel case was funneling through federal court: SEC v. Jarkesy. In a seismic 2024 ruling with direct relevance to Sun Valley, SCOTUS ruled that citizens are entitled to a jury trial when hit with civil penalties imposed by administrative law judges.

Jarkesy punched a massive hole through agency walls, and IJ drove a Sun Valley truck through the breach. In July 2025, a panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled in favor of the Marinos, declaring DOL actions in violation of the Constitution.

The Marino victory, spearheaded by IJ, was landmark. “This type of agency abuse happens to so many people everywhere in the country, and across so many agencies,” Belden notes.

Currently, the federal government contains at least 400 departments, agencies, and sub-agencies, and their internal courts, such as DOL’s in-house system, have sky-high win rates. “Think about it,” Belden describes, “They get to litigate disputes in front of their colleagues instead of independent judges.”

Emblematic of Belden’s contention, former FTC Commissioner Joshua Wright made stunning remarks in 2015 regarding a phenomenally high agency win rate from roughly 1995 to 2015: “In 100 percent of cases where the administrative law judge ruled in favor of the FTC staff, the Commission (appeals board) affirmed liability; and in 100 percent of the cases in which the administrative law judge found no liability, the Commission reversed. This is a strong sign of an unhealthy and biased (emphasis added) institutional process.”

The institutional, in-house system is about more than control and power, Belden notes. Money is a significant player. In 2024 alone, according to an IJ release, DOL collected $4.9 million in back wages and imposed $5.8 million in penalties on agricultural employers.

“The truth is, in these cases, DOL very often fails to return money to workers,” Belden says. “DOL keeps much of the money it collects or kicks it back to Congress. An independent judge or jury would not have money floating in the backs of their minds as potential influence.”

The Bloodbath
Sun Valley’s David v. Goliath victory came with a bitterly painful precursor. Joe and Russell lost their farm in 2021.

A perfect storm of weather and depressed markets from 2019-2021, in tandem with DOL fines and legal fees, crushed Sun Valley. In December 2021, the Marino farming operation—from shovel to tractor to combine to land—went under the gavel. For the last time, the brothers cranked their farm machinery and lined up the vehicles for public purchase.

After surviving for 125 years, Sun Valley disappeared in a two-day farm sale. The Marino brothers sent their father out of town to ensure he wouldn’t witness the gut-wrenching process: hundreds of strangers on the property, pawing the equipment and hauling away a legacy piece by piece. Joe and Russ walked away, pockets empty.

“Tough as hell two days. So heavy on my spirit,” Joe remembers. “I’ve always had a burning passion for agriculture, but at the end of the day, it’s a business and you’ve got to make money. All along, while we were dealing with DOL, I was mindful that we wouldn’t go down with the ship. We are family men with kids and their futures to consider. We also had my father’s and uncle’s buyout balances to protect at all costs.”

“We sold out, took care of my dad and uncle, and got out with next to nothing, but at least we didn’t owe anyone. The DOL played a major role in our demise. At the point when we sold everything, we still didn’t know what would happen in court.”

Four years later, after almost a decade-long legal nightmare, Joe received the news of the Third Circuit’s vindication via a phone call from IJ. Struggling to process the victory, he fell to his knees under a flood of tears—and let go of nine years of pain.

Weaponization
Sun Valley v. DOL was a massive victory for constitutional rights and the ability of common Americans to be heard in independent courts. However, the Marinos paid an extreme price for their fellow citizens’ liberty, Belden explains.

“No one should forget: The Marino family had to close their farm. Their hardship is not adequately conveyed in a court decision. It’s so good they won, but the toll on them was heavier than words.”

“I don’t want this to ever, ever happen to another farmer or small business owner or American,” says Joe Marino. “The time for change is right now.”

(Photo by Andrew Wimer, IJ)

Joe takes solace in the establishment of precedent for genuine change in bureaucracy and agriculture.

“H-2A is a failed system. Everyone knows it. We need a fair, stable, and affordable means of getting skilled seasonal labor to feed this country, but control of the program should be with USDA and not in the hands of DOL. Our elected officials now have what they need to make a switch.”

“In the end, we got our good name cleared, but more important than that, I’m truly thankful because I know our case will help others down the road, and there are people right now enduring this same kind of government abuse,” Joe adds. “It’s time for the weaponization of our government agencies to stop.”

For more from Chris Bennett (@ChrisBennettMS or cbennett@farmjournal.com or 662-592-1106), see:

County Shuts Down 15-Yr-Old’s Bait Stand on Family Farm, Threatens Daily Fines

City Gov to Seize 175-Year-Old Farm by Eminent Domain, Replace with Affordable Housing

Ghost Cattle: $650M Ponzi Rocks Livestock Industry, Money Still Missing

Game of Horns: Iowa Poacher’s Antler Addiction Leads to Historic Bust

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How the Deep State Tried, and Failed, to Crush an American Farmer

Sisters of Farm Fraud: How 4 Siblings Fleeced USDA for $10M

Corn and Cocaine: Roger Reaves and the Most Incredible Farm Story Never Told

The Story of the American Farmer: Celebrating 250 Years of U.S. Agriculture

7,000 Dog Tags Turn Minnesota Apple Orchard into Powerful and Sacred Memorial

Family Farm Wins Historic Case After Feds Violate Constitution and Ruin Business