LOUISVILLE — Nancy Simpson has felt a void at ceremonies honoring America's military dead — services that she says slighted the ultimate sacrifice to freedom by soldiers like her son.

        Air Force Lt. Brice Simpson, died when his F-16 fighter jet crashed on takeoff in Japan in 1998.

        “There are a lot of people who have lost sons in peace exercises while preparing for war, and they have been forgotten,” she said. “Yet their cost for freedom is just as definite and just as big.”

        Mr. Simpson was remembered in a Memorial Day ceremony to unveil the design for a memorial honoring soldiers who died during peacetime.

        The memorial will be built on a one-acre site adjacent to a park near the banks of the Ohio River, about 3 1/2 miles east of downtown Louisville. The land was donated by Humana Inc. co-founder David Jones.

        “Patriotism is not something that belongs just to those of us who have been in combat,” said retired Marine Corps Maj. Allen Broussard. “It belongs to everybody that's worn that uniform ... and served their country with dignity and with pride.”

        James Walters, an architect and a project adviser, said the winning design, by architect David Quillin of Berlin, Md., consists of a brick, columned, cube-like structure. He said the structure represents the interwoven fabric of communities and families.

        “As someone dies in service, a brick is removed from that fabric and that name in glass is placed where the brick once was, so that the fabric is deconstructed, as it were, over time by the people that are lost from the community,” he said. “It's a very powerful message.”

        The structure will be lit at night, so people can see empty spaces in the brick wall, reminding them of soldiers who died, Mr. Walters said.

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