You can't help but notice The Highground as you travel along Highway 10, west of Neillsville.

If you decide to leave the highway and go up the hill to what indeed is high ground, you'll find a touching, beautifully done memorial park for veterans and their families.

The Highground, a grassroots effort run by a non-profit group, states its mission is to "honor veterans and their families and to educate about the cost of things -- the human cost. It is the vision of The Highground to honor human courage and sacrifice wherever it is displayed, without either denying or glorifying the pain and suffering of war and life."

Covering 140 acres, and overlooking thousands of acres of Wisconsin woodlands and glacial moraine, the park is open 24/7, 365 days a year. A Timberframe Information Center and Gift Shop is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily and offers an audio tour and other guides for the grounds.

Those grounds are impressive. Statues and other structures honoring veterans of all American wars are artistically arranged around the site. There's a WWI doughboy. The Globe, a five-foot diameter globe on a black granite base, pays tribute to WWII vets.

A statue of a nurse pays tribute to all women who have served the nation. The Highground was one of the first veteran memorials to pay tribute to women veterans.

The National Native American Vietnam Veterans Memorial is the first national memorial to be established at The Highground. Mounted on a 10-ton piece of red granite, the sculpture depicts a Native American soldier in jungle fatigues, holding a rifle in one hand and an Eagle Feather Staff in the other. The names of Native Americans who died in the Vietnam War are etched into the granite base.

Near the memorial for Native American vets of Vietnam, you can find the Vietnam Veterans Tribute. This is the first veterans tribute in the U.S. to include a woman in the statuary. She wears a poncho that flows out from the back of the figures. Under it, she carries the burden of Wisconsin vets killed in Vietnam. Their names are inscribed on the bundles of bamboo-shaped bronze rods in the back of the statue.

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