On Memorial Day 1964 a corner of Chisago City’s downtown park a memorial was installed to the Veterans of Chisago City. A granite monument to deceased veterans of all wars, park benches, a fountain, and flanked by flowering crabapple trees was what existed until 1989 when a flagpole was installed.
On September 21, 2014 part of a new and enlarged memorial will be dedicated in that same park (named Vilhelm Moberg Park). Along with that dedication comes the naming of a segment of Minnesota Highway 8 (Lake Blvd.) stretching from the southwest limits of Chisago City to the eastern limits of Center City as Nicholas Patrick Spehar Memorial Highway.
Nicholas, a lifelong resident of Minnesota and a 2005 graduate of Chisago Lakes High School, was one of 30 Americans killed on August 16, 2011 in the Wardak provice of Afghanistan while on a rescue mission aboard a Chinook helicopter with the call sign Extortion 17.
Chisago City is incorporating in their new Veterans Memorial a recognition of the service of Special Operator Second Class Nicholas Patrick Spehar and the mission and crew of Extortion 17.