‘Letter from Home’: New sculpture in Glendive honors Vietnam veterans

That vision grew larger than life as Harr created a 1.2-times-life-size sculpture of a soldier reading a letter from a loved one, honoring Vietnam veterans and all they have done for their country. It is named "Letters from Home".

The idea began in late 2024, when Harr created two small preliminary models: one of a soldier reading a letter and another of a soldier bugling. She brought them to a local Veterans of Foreign Wars meeting to see which design the group preferred. With members responding enthusiastically to the soldier reading a letter, Harr knew which design to move forward with, she said.

To raise money to help with the cost of the full-size statue Harr created larger versions of the sculpture, roughly six to seven inches tall. While most sales were focused in Glendive and the surrounding area, Harr said some sales came as far away as Maryland and Hawaii.

“So many people have donated so much to these sculptures,” Harr said. “They’ve made it possible for me to do this.”

Creating the final sculpture required a combination of traditional sculpting techniques and modern technology.

Harr enlarged the original model using sculpting foam before covering it in clay. To accurately recreate the soldier’s equipment, she asked local veterans to bring in examples of items from the Vietnam era, including utility belts, canteens, pistols and patches.

Using those pieces as references, Harr hand-molded the equipment onto the sculpture. The M16 rifle, however, presented a different challenge.

“I thought, well, an M16 would be really nice,” she said.

Because of the difficulty of accurately scaling the rifle to the larger sculpture, Harr turned to 3D-printing technology at the Kalispell Art Foundry, who also fired the sculpture. The M16 was 3D-printed and then prepared to be cast in bronze along with the rest of the sculpture.

The sculpture also carries a deep personal connection for Harr. Her first husband, Gerry Harr, was killed in Vietnam and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery. That experience helped inspire her long-held goal of creating a tribute to Vietnam veterans.

“When I was there visiting my husband’s grave, I just made it my dream to someday sculpt a tribute to veterans who served in Vietnam,” she said.

The soldier reading a letter was also partly inspired by photographs Harr had of her first husband and other soldiers serving in Vietnam. One photograph. Just stuck in Harr’s head which showed a soldier with an M16 leaning against his shoulder while reading a letter.

Once the clay sculpture was completed, it went through the labor-intensive lost-wax casting process at the Kalispell Art Foundry.

The process began by creating molds from the clay sculpture. The molds were then coated with wax, creating a wax replica of each section of the sculpture. The wax pieces were removed from the clay and covered with layers of ceramic material and allowed to dry, forming a hard shell around the wax.

The ceramic shells were then fired, melting away the wax and leaving hollow molds which were filled with bronze heated to about 2,000 degrees to finish the casts.

After the bronze cooled, the ceramic shells were removed, leaving the individual bronze pieces. The 28 pieces were then welded together, sandblasted to clean up the joints and chemically oxidized to achieve the sculpture’s final color.

“It’s really a great process,” Harr said.

Once completed, the sculpture was transported to Glendive, where local volunteers helped prepare the site and place the sculpture on its base on Saturday, Aug. 15.

Harr’s work at the memorial is not finished. She has also created a sculpture of a German shepherd wearing a military harness as a tribute to the animals that have served alongside members of the military. The bronze dog is currently being cast, with hopes that it will arrive by winter.

The new Vietnam veteran sculpture is Harr’s 16th sculpture in the community, but she said she has no shortage of ideas for what could come next.

“I’ve got ideas for more sculptures,” she said. “But who knows what’ll come along?”

Her work is part of a larger goal of displaying art throughout Glendive.

“This is all part of my dream to fill the town with sculptures,” Harr said.

That dream extends beyond her individual work. Harr and her late husband, Harvey Rattey, both began their careers as artists around 1970. Their work and awards are featured at the Frontier Gateway Museum in Glendive, where Harr has also donated other pieces, including a large dollhouse and her saddle. She was inducted into the Cowgirl Hall of Fame in 1981.

For Harr, however, each sculpture is about more than the finished bronze.

“Every sculpture has a different story of how it came about,” she said.

She is now writing a book about those stories, as well as her and Radish’s careers as artists.

The Vietnam veteran sculpture is the latest chapter in that story — one that brings together personal loss, community support and Harr’s lifelong commitment to creating art in Glendive.

“I’m just really thankful to live in Glendive,” she said.