The Freedom Memorial
Rick Baker’s long road to remembering fallen veterans
When Rick Baker stands in front of the metal and concrete structure known as the Freedom Memorial, honoring soldiers from Montana killed in the line of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq, there’s a rush of emotion. The metal work that permanently etched the names of fallen soldiers is his handiwork. He can’t count the hours he worked making this memorial a reality, but he knows the time spent was worth every minute.
“Some gave their lives jumping on grenades to protect the people next to them,” Rick says. “I just want their stories to live on and be told.”
The military is part of Rick’s own story. Like many young men following 9/11, he felt a patriotic duty to join the US Army. At 18, he was assigned to the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment, the oldest active-duty infantry unit within the Army, nicknamed “The Old Guard.” The unit served at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, participating in the funerals of active-duty military at Arlington National Cemetery.
It wasn’t the assignment he hoped for.
“I was a Montana boy and wanted to shoot and blow-up stuff,” Rick says. Within his unit, he was “the head fold man” on the full-honors casket team, folding and handing the flag off to the staff sergeant who then presented it to a fallen soldier’s family. “At first I hated it, but after I went overseas and did my tour, I had a whole new outlook on it,” he says.
While on duty, Rick’s unit would often pass by the Vietnam Veterans Memorial as they moved through Arlington’s back gate.
“You would see battle buddies sitting there, touching the wall, crying,” Rick says. He knew it was a place where people could go to grieve, cry, heal and, he says, “hopefully bring some type of closure.”
Sgt. Rick Baker eventually found himself serving overseas during Operation Enduring Freedom. He came home having lost his own battle buddies. The experience changed him and sent him on a path he least expected.
“The service taught me about working together for one common goal and achieving the mission no matter what,” he says.
When he returned to Fort Carson, Colorado, Rick qualified for the All-Army Wrestling Team. Wrestling for him was a childhood passion, so making the team and practicing at the Olympic Training Center seemed unreal. While wrestling, however, he tore his shoulder. Sadly, surgery didn’t go well and neither did recovery. He ended his military career with an honorable discharge.
The year was 2005, before the nation realized it was on the brink of an opioid epidemic. For more than a decade, doctors with Veterans Affairs would treat Rick’s constant shoulder pain with a prescription for Oxycodone.
“I was in a very dark place for over nine years,” Rick says. “I was irrational, out of my mind.” When addiction set in, he tried to nab extra pills by doctoring a prescription, changing the refills from one to four. “I didn’t think they would notice.” Turns out, he was caught and convicted of fraudulently obtaining dangerous drugs. As part of his sentencing, Rick attended District Judge Mary Jane Knisley’s veteran treatment court. He suffered a slipup within the program and with the violation came a two year sentence to the Montana State Prison.
After being released, Rick tried hard to reinvent himself.
“If you give an addict purpose, watch them change the world,” Rick says today.
He went to college for a degree in psychiatric rehabilitation, having a strong desire to help other veterans with drug addiction and PTSD. As he tried to chart a new professional course, he took job with Tumbleweed, an outreach program for homeless, runaway and vulnerable youth. Eventually, he was promoted to case manager, helping victims of human trafficking.
“That was too heavy for me. Between my own PTSD, going to school and working in the field, my brain never got a break,” he says.
That’s when Rick turned to what he knew — welding. He started his company, Metal Tech, and while he was standing in line at the Yellowstone County Courthouse to secure his business license, he had an epiphany.
“I was looking at the Vietnam and WWII Memorials, and I got an overwhelming sense of emotion as I started thinking about the soldiers I lost that I had served with,” he says, realizing that the land just outside the courthouse didn’t hold a memorial for those killed in action in more recent conflicts. “I said to myself, ‘Build them a memorial yourself.’”
That’s when Hoodies for Heroes was launched. The nonprofit had a unique yet simple fundraising model. Rick would sell hoodie sweatshirts emblazoned with the charity’s logo and the names of the Montana soldiers killed in action to help raise awareness of the memorial and later, garner sponsorships to build it.
Rick personally knew one of the men whose name would one day be etched on the memorial wall: U.S. Army Sergeant Terry Lynch. Terry and Rick went to school together in Shepherd, and both were passionate about wrestling. Being from a small Montana town, Rick also knew the Lynch family. Terry was killed in 2009 when a roadside bomb blew up next to his vehicle in the Wardak Province of Afghanistan.
Sgt. Terry Lynch
“That tie made this feel like the right thing to do,” Rick says. While he knew there were others in Montana communities that paid the ultimate price, “Terry was the inspiration behind Hoodies for Heroes.”
Being a certified welder, Rick had the skills to build the memorial. He had a sketch of the memorial he envisioned, but didn’t have any viable marketing materials to showcase the project or any knowledge of how to build a nonprofit from scratch.
That’s where Ken Callihan stepped in. Being a fellow veteran, Ken, who now serves as the board president of Hoodies for Heroes, bonded with Rick right away. His expertise helped launch the nonprofit and helped move the project to where it stands today. Rick also credits Scott Aspenlieder with Performance Engineering and City Councilman Bill Kennedy for their role in the memorial.
Having Ken tackle the administrative side of things gave Rick time to beat the streets, set up tables with hoodies anywhere anyone would let him. His kids helped him pack his car and licked and stamped countless fundraising letters.
Both Rick and Ken spoke to local service clubs and businesses whenever the opportunity arose. Within three years, the organization had sold 3,000 hoodies and raised enough money through donations, $500,000, to break ground on what would become the Freedom Memorial. On Memorial Day of 2024, Rick grabbed a shovel for the official groundbreaking.
Eric Simonsen of Simonsen Architect, donated much of his time to help create the unique, hands-on memorial. Rick described what he envisioned and Eric drew up the specs to make it happen.
“When Rick shared his passion for getting this memorial built, listening to him talk about his dream convinced me immediately that this was a project I had to be part of and for my firm to do our part to help him achieve his very worthwhile goal,” Eric says.
After many hours of bringing the design to life in his Metal Tech shop, Rick remembers placing the first nameplate on the backside of the memorial and having to climb down off his ladder after being overwhelmed with emotion.
“The sense of the whole vision coming together, the sense of grief and sadness of what it represented,” Rick says. “It’s a human, not a nameplate.”
Since Congress doesn’t classify the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan as wars, but instead conflicts, there was no state or federal funding for memorials like this. That’s why Rick gathered the names of all Montanans who died during those conflicts beginning with Operation Desert Storm more than 30 years ago.
“That’s why I had to go out and hustle. It’s kind of sad because up until now these 49 names had not been recognized,” Rick says.
Not far from the memorial is the wheelchair-accessible interactive digital kiosk. A tap screen lights up, telling the story of each fallen soldier on the wall. It can be updated with a USB drive.
“If there are any future conflicts, any others killed in action, God forbid — that’s a sad reality of our life — we can update it,” says Rick.
The kiosk will share a brief biography of each fallen soldier, the campaigns they served in, their unit and where they were deployed. The design is interactive and educational, telling these heroes' stories in a way that’s much more than just reading a name on a wall.
“That’s what I wanted to create here in Billings, for the mothers, for the brothers, the sisters, the fathers,” Rick says. “That way they have a place to go and pay homage, knowing that they will be remembered. Their story will live on.” He adds, “This is just a small reminder to stop, reflect, remember, say thank you.”
The night before the 2024 Memorial Day ribbon-cutting ceremony, Charlie Lynch, Terry’s father, came to look at the memorial. Emotional, he said to Rick, “All I wanted was my son to be remembered, and now he will always be remembered.” He added, “People forget. Life goes on, but this will always be there.”
That statement made all the hurdles, hustling hoodies, giving speeches, the learning process, plus the time and effort, worth it for Rick.
“I’ve been told no a lot of times,” Rick says. “No one is going to give money to a nonprofit whose founder is a felon. No one is going to trust you. You can’t do this.” He adds, “That just put me in another gear and drove me to do more.”
While the memorial stands at Dehler Park, Rick’s work isn’t finished quite yet. He’s got $30,000 left to raise to finish the lighting around the memorial and purchase the software program for the interactive kiosk. Memorial bricks and paver stones that will be etched with the sponsor’s names and laid around the memorial’s entryway will fund the last leg of the project.
“It’s our way to get the whole community involved because not everyone can afford a major sponsorship,” Rick says.
On Memorial Day this spring, the Rotary Club is hosting a parade that will start downtown and end at the Freedom Memorial. That’s when Rick will officially sign over the memorial to the city of Billings.
The move will allow Rick to change gears and focus on another passion, something he knows deeply — helping combat veterans through the V.A. and the Veterans Navigation Network to face their PTSD and addiction issues.
“We want to help raise awareness of the opioid and fentanyl epidemic here in Montana,” Rick says.
He’s hoping to help connect veterans with resources in the community. “We are already in the process of organizing community workouts for veterans,” Rick says, adding that he hopes other nonprofits join him to provide information on their services.
As you look at the memorial, the words “All Gave Some, Some Gave All” stand at attention at the top of the structure. Sobering words not only for Rick, but the many who will come here to heal.
“I wanted this memorial to be something that people can touch. It makes things real and tangible. It represents the people I can’t touch anymore — the soldiers, my battle buddies that I can’t give a handshake or a hug,” Rick says. “You can have an experience here, take time to pause, reflect and say thank you.”
