A special monument in honor of a fallen veteran will eventually be on display in Lehighton.

Mike and Sarah Wargo approached borough council recently with a proposal to place a War at Home Memorial on the grass “park” between Lehigh Drive and Sgt. Stanley Hoffman Boulevard.Mike Wargo said the monument is in honor of the 22 veterans who commit suicide on average each day in our country.Wargo said the couple’s son, Michael C. Wargo, was among those nominated by Mary Baylis from Valor Clinic (Paul’s House).“If just one veteran looks at this, it’s all worth it,” Mike said. “Nobody should have to deal with what we had to deal with the last four years.”After hearing the couple’s request, council agreed to allow them to place the monument at that location in coordination with borough Manager Nicole Beckett and the Lehighton United Veterans Organization for planning.Post-traumatic stressMichael C. Wargo was a 1994 graduate of Lehighton Area High School who was on the National Honor Society.He attended Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science to become a doctor, but according to his father, fell in love and decided he didn’t want to spend another eight years in school and became a biology/chemistry teacher.Then, 9/11 happened, and he joined the United States Army, where he spent 10 months in Afghanistan asa chemical weapons specialist in the U.S. Army.“He saw things that no one should see, including 10 of his friends die around him,” Mike Wargo said. “He had terrific survivor guilt.”After his service, he returned home in 2005 a changed man, Mike Wargo said.Wargo said his son suffered with post-traumatic stress disorder for eight years, before eventually taking his life on May 20, 2013.The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs ruled that his death was service-related, and awarded full benefits to his daughter, Brianna, 6 at the time, Mike Wargo said.He was survived by his parents, daughter (now 10 years old), and a sister, Kerry Ann.The monumentThe Mission 22 Mobile Monument was created to honor the 22 veterans who take their own lives every day, Mike Wargo said.“We were honored that Michael was chosen as one of those from across the United States,” he said, adding there were two other veterans chosen from the state for the distinction.Since Desert Storm, we have lost about 6,000 of our best men and women who were killed in action, along with 120,000 veterans who survived the war over seas, only to take their lives here at home, Mike Wargo said.The memorials were unveiled Oct. 15 in Bandera, Texas, and will travel the country before they eventually find a permanent site in Washington, D.C., he said.“Then at the end of that day, Mission 22 people came over to us and said, if we wanted, they would truck the three cutouts to Pennsylvania and we could create our own memorials here at home,” Mike Wargo said.“We did not know what to do and where we would put the cutouts, but we said that would be great.”He said they spoke to state Rep. Doyle Heffley, who said it would be great if all three Pennsylvania heroes were on display in Harrisburg at Soldiers Grove possibly for a weekend or so to bring awareness to the veterans suicide that exists in our country.Mike Wargo said that Heffley is still pursuing that for Michael, but that the other two families decided they were not interested in the Harrisburg display.“We will be receiving the ‘memorial cutout’ the last week in April,” he said. “I spoke to some great people at the Gilbert American Legion, and Butch Zacharias offered to weld the cutout to a steel base so it can be permanently installed, probably in May or June, down on the Sgt. Stanley Hoffman Boulevard.”Recently, the Lehighton American Legion donated $500 in support of the project, which Mike Wargo said is to not only honor his son, but all those who lost the battle at home from post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury.“Just one is too many,” he said of the veterans who have taken their lives. “We need to bring (awareness) to this problem that they have.”