Holding a piece of ribbon from the ribbon cutting, Keith Maupin, father of fallen Army Reserve Staff Sgt. Keith Matthew Maupin, stands in front of the new display honoring his son at the Pentagon.
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(L to R): Keith Maupin, Command Sergeant Major Luther Thomas, Congressman Brad Wenstrup, and Lt. General Talley meet before the Army Reserve Corridor Dedication.
The U.S. Army Reserve dedicated a corridor to the numerous acts of Army Reserve Soldiers throughout history Tuesday afternoon, including the sacrifice of SSG Matt Maupin of Clermont County. Those in attendance included Keith Maupin, Matt’s father, and local Congressman Brad Wenstrup, an Army Reservist himself. “Ohio knows the story of Matt’s sacrifice, and it should not be forgotten,” Wenstrup said following the event. “With this dedication, his story will be remembered throughout the Pentagon and nation in perpetuity. The display is a fitting tribute.”SSG Matt Maupin was captured in 2004 during an ambush by enemy forces and confirmed K.I.A. in 2008. Wenstrup, a Lt. Colonel in the Army Reserve, served in Iraq during the ongoing search for Maupin.
The exhibit stretches the length of the fifth corridor on the Pentagon’s second floor. Keith Maupin founded the Yellow Ribbon Support Center, in Clermont County, which mails packages to deployed Service members and honors those who don’t come home. Lt. Gen. Jeffrey W. Talley, chief of the Army Reserve, presided over the ceremony, cutting a yellow ribbon.
Maupin said he is grateful for the freedom that Service members provide to Americans. He is personally grateful, he said, to those Service members who continually searched for his son after the ambush.
“I can’t thank them enough and I know that I will never meet them all,” he said. “But I want to tell them ‘thank you.’ Somebody was always looking for Matt – and they never forgot him.”
- Former Army Reserve Spc. Jeremy Church, Silver Star Recipient; Keith Maupin, father of fallen Army Reserve Staff Sgt. Keith M. Maupin; Lt. Gen. Jeffrey W. Talley, chief of the Army Reserve and U.S. Army Reserve Command commanding general; and former U.S. Army Reserve Sgt. David Hutchinson, Silver Star recipient; cut the ribbon during the U.S. Army Reserve Pentagon Corridor Exhibit Dedication Ceremony, April 21, 2015. Photo Credit: Sgt. 1st Class Marisol Hernandez
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Display honoring the sacrifice of SSG Matt Maupin during the Global War on Terror in the newly unveiled U.S. Army Reserve corridor in the Pentagon.
