After serving 27 years in the U.S. Army Special Forces — including 3 years in Iraq — Mark Hoffmann wanted to honor his fallen comrades. Together, he and his wife Linda started brainstorming ideas for a memorial of some sort. They called around, looked into a few local places, and finally stumbled upon the perfect location: the apple orchard. With their location set, they came up with the idea to display dog tags with the names of fallen soldiers along the orchard's fence.