May 20, 2025 • 19 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Ray “Bubba” Sorensen shares the story behind his “Freedom Rocks”—giant, unique, hand-painted boulders honoring veterans in all 99 counties across Iowa.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is our American stories and up next a story
you likely won't forget. Across the state of Iowa, people
can find the Freedom Rocks. These rocks, painted by Ray
Bubba Sorensen, depict local military heroes and scenes of battle.
Is a thank you to American veterans. Here's our own
(00:30):
Monty Montgomery with the story.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Ray Bubba Sorenson was born in the heartland of America.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
So I was born in Creston, Iowa, and I grew
up in the little town of Fontnell, Iowa, about six
hundred people, you know, played about every sport and I
just had kind of your normal generic high school or
small town upbringing before technology really hit.
Speaker 4 (00:58):
I guess.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
So, my uncle Ted served in Vietnam as an AVCB,
and you know, most most of the country knows that.
Speaker 4 (01:11):
You know, our Vietnam veterans.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Weren't treated very well when they returned back from service,
and they came home to a very ungrateful nation, and
you know, some were spat on, some were you know,
protested as they got off buses and planes, and a
lot of those guys kind of hid their service or
were ashamed of their service. And my mom told me
about all that, and you know, that never sat well
(01:33):
with me. And then, of course, like as I was
growing up, movies like Rambo, TV shows like Tour of Duty,
old old shows, World War two dramas like Combat. My
mom would watch those with me, and although you know
they were you know, fictional, they were based on actual
narratives of Vietnam veterans, World War II veterans, So my
mom was able to kind of illustrate to me the
(01:55):
service and sacrifice of all these men and women, how
much especially our Korean which is a forgotten war, and
our Vietnam veterans were treated when they came back, and
that just really stuck with me, you know. And as
I grew up, I started to, I guess, parallel stories here.
Speaker 4 (02:11):
Become interested in art.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Like I said, I had a love for football, so
a lot of my artwork is you know, patriotic or
it was very much sports based.
Speaker 4 (02:19):
So you know, I kind of just started, I guess,
on this.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Diverging course of my love for veterans, and you know,
my patriotism growing and me growing as an artist just
kind of set me on this course too. I wanted
to say thank you to our veterans.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
But the birth of Ray's ultimate idea to say thank
you happened in a movie theater.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
What the ultimate spark was is I was sitting in
a movie theater watching the movie Save in Private, Ryan,
And you know, if you've seen.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
That movie, you know the first half hour, you know, our.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Men and you could even say boys, some of them
were seventeen sixteen, seventeen, eighteen years old, are literally storming
the beaches of Normandy, spilling their guts for our country.
And it was just so realistic, so in your face
of you know what, maybe a glimpse of what war
was like.
Speaker 4 (03:14):
And I just left the theater.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Saying, I've got to find a way to say thank
you to all our men and women that serve this country.
And that was kind of the birth of the Freedom Rock.
When I had the idea to you know, paint the
very first Freedom Rock, I thought, where am I going
to put this mural where? You know, I have no
experience as a mural artist. So for me, I wasn't
(03:38):
going to, you know, tap some business owner on the
shoulder and say, hey, can I have no experience at all?
Can I paint the site of your wall? So, you know,
my thoughts turned to the rock out there. The first
rock was known as just the rock.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
The rock. It sits nuts to a rock cory.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
And you know, they're mining, you know, gravel and limestone
and things out of this quarry and they.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
Hit this huge granite boulder.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
So they just left it there as a marker in
the entrance to the quarry, and kids started graffeeding it,
and I started tagging it with you know, all sorts
of stuff.
Speaker 4 (04:11):
You know, I think there's been.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Marriage proposals, there have been. There was a giant eminem
at once. There were there were I think one of
I have one of the pictures though. One of the
funnier ones was Santa Claus with his pants down moon
in the traffic around Christmas, and and that's just kind
of how it went. And I thought, Hey, for Memorial Day,
I'm gonna go out there. I'm gonna throw my paint
on there, say thank you to the veterans. And you know,
(04:33):
my thought was it's going to get painted over and
be long forgotten. You know, it was just going to
be my one time to say thank you, and then.
Speaker 4 (04:41):
It was going to continue to be graffiti through the years.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
I grabbed all the paint I could what I thought
was outdoor paint. I mixed oil and acrylic, which is
a huge no no in the art world. I had
no idea what I was doing, but I was going
to kind of teach myself how to paint a mural,
and so that was that was the star it and
I just it was bounded, determined to say thank you
to these veterans. And you know, my mom and dad
(05:06):
always tell this little side story. I'm a college student,
so I'm broke, and I was like, Mom, can you
buy the paint for this rock? I want to say
thank you to our veterans. And she called Dad and
she was like, I don't he wants to go paint
that large boulder north of town.
Speaker 4 (05:22):
You know, do I buy the paint. It's going to
be fifty bucks. And Dad was like, do it. Yeah,
that sounds like a heck of a project.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
And so they kind of both take credit for, you know,
buying the first paint for the original Freedom Rock, and
that's how it was born. I painted thank you Veterans
for our Freedom and the flag raising at Ewajima because
that is my all time favorite picture, and it happened
exactly like I thought. I painted it lasted for a
few months, thank you to the veterans. Somebody painted over it. Fine,
(05:49):
moving on. But the thing is is Memorial Day came
around again and some local veterans asked, hey, will you
go out there and paint that same thing that you
did last year for us?
Speaker 4 (05:59):
And I thought, you know what, I'm gonna do one better.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
And so I went out there and I painted Lee's
Heater's reflections, or at least a version of it, you know,
painting it on a rock.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
And like I said, as a as a budding mural artist,
I still have a lot to learn.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
But I gave a shot at you know, that famous
reflections Vietnam Veterans memorial wall painting and some other scenes,
and that ended up lasting.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
For an entire year, which was unheard of.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
With the rock, it always got painted over within a
month or two.
Speaker 4 (06:34):
But nobody touched that one.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
And so at last year and that with like around
the town around the Derek County where the rock was famous,
everybody's like, oh my god.
Speaker 4 (06:43):
Nobody's painted over the rock. Nobody, what's gonna happen? Nobody
painted over the rock? Are we just leaving this how
it is?
Speaker 3 (06:48):
And instead of doing that, I thought, well, I don't
want to kill the spirit of.
Speaker 4 (06:52):
The rock changing.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
You know, people kind of got used to it having
different artwork on it. So I thought, well, I'll go
out there and I'll paint another different scene thanking our veterans.
And so that's kind of what snowballed it into the
annual tradition of you know, I go out there at
the start of May, and I allow myself the month
of May I finish my new artwork thanking our veterans.
(07:16):
And I'm always done by Memorial Day, no matter what.
So some years get more detail than others, just depending
on weather and time and how many visitors I get.
And that's that's kind of the whole story of how
the rock became I guess my canvas of choice, and
how I've spent the past twenty two years repainting every Memorial.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Day, and since then raised project has expanded beyond the
original rock. It's a much much larger operation now. Because
of some interesting Iowen inspiration.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
I started the what's known as the Freedom Rock Tour.
I had the idea to try and paint a smaller
version of the original Free and Rock, and every single.
Speaker 4 (08:01):
One of Iowa's ninety nine counties.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
I don't know if you know, politics wise, we have
a very famous senator from Iowa, Chuck Grassley. He's always
known for doing what's called the full Grassly and that means,
you know, visiting every single Iowa county, you know, every
time he runs for reelection. And I thought, you know,
how neat of an idea is that to be able
to go to each one of our ninety nine counties,
(08:24):
and you know, how cool would it be as an
artist to have a piece of artwork in all.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
Of Iowa's ninety nine counties. And so that's kind of
where it was born.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
And my first idea was to try and do one
in all fifty states.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
And my wife was.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Like, hey, let's let's scale it back a little bit
and see, you know, let's let's keep you closer to
home and keep you in state. And so we kind
of talked it over and we decided to do the
one in every county in Iowa. And when we announced it,
I thought, you know, there's only going to be a
few people that get it, or you know, I was like,
(08:58):
I told my wife, I was like, if we book
ten in the first year, we'll be lucky, because I
just didn't figure people would jump on it that quickly.
We ended up booking sixty of the Iowa counties in
the first year, and then subsequently booked all the counties
and a few years after that and started off.
Speaker 4 (09:16):
And I just finished a week or two ago.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
I finished the ninety fifth out of ninety nine counties
in Iowa.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
And you're listening to Ray Bubba Sorensen tell his story
of the Freedom Rocks in Iowa. And it took saving
private Ryan Well to just act as a catalyst for
this endeavor, the Freedom Rocks. The story continues here on
our American stories, and we returned to our American stories
(10:12):
and the story of the Freedom Rocks painted rocks thanking
our veterans and found across the state of Iowa and
slowly moving across the United States. Right now shares with
us the stories of some of the memorable people he's
meant while painting these rocks. Take it away, Ray.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
I have a few really special stories that kind of
stick out. Probably the very first one is, you know,
goes with the guy that I call.
Speaker 4 (10:41):
The sergeant and Arms of the Rock.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
Now he's kind of been a caretaker of the flags
out there and just kind of overall maintenance of what's
going on with the grounds around it. He's a Vietnam
veteran and he was driving semi truck for one of
the local companies in town and I I just started
painting the one that the very first one, and I
(11:03):
have certain painting and I put the had the flag
raising done. I was I think I was working on
the lettering and he's coming down this large hill coming
towards the rock and he slams on the brakes of
the semi truck and pulls over. And I thought to myself, like,
oh crap, I'm in trouble for painting this rock. And
I kept telling myself like I had called the corry
and asked permission.
Speaker 4 (11:22):
I have every right to be here and paint this.
You know. This guy gets out of the truck and
he almost looks angry, and he's like, are you on
painting this?
Speaker 3 (11:29):
And I was like yes, and I was like sweating
a little bit, and he was like, I just want.
Speaker 4 (11:33):
To say thank you. He's like I was.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Vietnam veterans didn't get a very good welcome home, and
I appreciate, you know, people when they do stuff like
this for our veterans, and so it's become kind of
a lifelong friendship from there on out. And for the
past twenty two years he's kind of helped me keep
an eye on the rock and keep the flags up
and flying. And so that was that was one of
(11:55):
the memorable ones. Another one, you know, a few years
into painting it, I had a young man and I
say young man because I think he was younger than
me even at the time, and I was fairly young.
He had just gotten back from overseas, and he came
out and very polite, you know, said appreciated my work
was veteran. He also appreciated how quiet it was when
(12:19):
it wasn't a patriotic holiday. Like he didn't he didn't
come out to the rock on the Memorial days, the
fourth of July and things like that. He always came
out on a non holiday to sit and reflect. And
he also said that like he was had had He
told me, he's like I had suicidal thoughts. I wasn't
feeling very good about myself or my service. I came
(12:39):
out here, I sat on this little rock and I
stared at your rock, and he goes it just changed
my whole perspective. He goes, I don't want to get
all mushy about it. I just wanted to be I
wanted to tell you that, and I wanted to tell
you how much it.
Speaker 4 (12:53):
Meant to me.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
And then he got up and left, and I thought, Wow,
that's that was powerful, and that's one Stories like that
are one of the many reasons people always ask why
do you continue to do this? Why do you continue
to paint for our veterans? And it's veterans like that
that I don't know that I may be affecting in
a positive way, and I hope I am.
Speaker 4 (13:12):
I hope it's landing that way with all of them,
whether I get to talk to them or not.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
I go to tell my wife and I've told my
parents before. If I get to save one veteran or
if I've affected somebody like that, that's good enough for me.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Ray also creates as murals with more than just paint.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
I've actually painted the remains or cremains of many veterans
on the rock, or mixed them with the paint and
painted them on there. So at current, I'm around one
hundred and twenty different Vietnam veterans ashes are mixed into
the green paint of the helicopter on the north side
of the rock. And how that started was some Vietnam
(13:54):
veteran bikers that were on their way to the wall.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
In Washington, d C. For Memorial Day stopped at the rock.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
I was painting a tribute to our you know, Vietnam
veterans at the time, and they, you know, they absolutely
loved it, and they go, hey, can we go get
some ashes of our recently fallen Vietnam veteran brothers and
sprinkle them here by the rock? And I said, I
wish you'd just dump them in my paint can and
I'll paint them on the rock because it's so windy
out here, you know, I don't want them to blow
away in the wind. And they loved that idea, so they,
(14:23):
about seven or eight of them, went and got these
ashes and they kind of all dumped them into my
paint can and I mixed them up and painted it
all on these helicopters on the on the north side
of the rock.
Speaker 4 (14:34):
And they loved it.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
And I thought that was a neat little tribute, and
I thought it was over after that, and then I
started getting Vietnam veterans ashes in the mail, started getting
them from all over the country, and they came with letters,
and they came in different little pill boxes and ornate
vases and sometimes just ziploc bags, and they came saying,
(14:57):
this is my brother. He passed away from me an
orange exposure in Vietnam.
Speaker 4 (15:02):
Loved your rock, loved your work. Once to have parts
of his remains on.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
This rock got to the point where I don't think
my wife liked to go into the po box because
there was always cremains, you know, waiting for us to
And I just what I did is I collected them.
Speaker 4 (15:16):
Each year.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
I'd let them ride around in the truck with me
until it was Memorial Day and I was done with
the rock. And they were always my final addition at
one o'clock on Memorial Day.
Speaker 4 (15:28):
And they still are.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
So I still collect, you know, our Vietnam veterans who
who want to be part of the rock. I collect
their ashes and they all go on, we read their
names off, we paint them onto the rock, and they're
there forever. The hard part and how it's gotten harder
(15:50):
for me is I've known a lot of these veterans.
Now I've gotten to know them over the years, and
they've always said they want their final resting place to
be that rock. And then they've passed away, and it's
you know, yeah, I've become friends with these guys, and yeah,
it gets it gets harder and harder, but I always
try and say, you know, it's a unique memorial and
(16:11):
kind of a unique place for them to be and
I'm so honored to even be a part of it.
One of the guys that was in the veterans hospital
out in Omaha, his son called me and said, can
I bring my dad out to the rock? He is
not in good health. Would you meet us out there?
And I said absolutely, I'll go out there and say hi,
I'm in town. And went out there and met him
(16:33):
and shook his hand, and he had oxygen hooked up
to him, and he was like, well, the hospital wasn't
very crazy about us getting him out here, but he
really wanted to see the rock. He wanted to touch
the rock, and he'd like to ask you if he
can be have his ashes put on the rock. And
I said, well absolutely, but you know, stick around. Let's
you know, we'd like to see get better. And what
I didn't know was that he was in his final days,
(16:55):
and two days later I got the call that he
had passed and his ashes were on the way, and
so his family came out and we I believe we
didn't do that when on Memorial Day. I think we
did it on like July fourth, because they just they
wanted to have like more of a private ceremony and
have the ashes go on in that way.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
But I just thought, that's it's.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
Amazing how much the Freedom Rock's message has gotten out there,
and I'm glad it has, and it's kind of amazing
the response and how many veterans want to be a
part of it, and that could could make me happier.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
I've just I guess I would say I.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
I don't know how to describe it, but I feel
very lucky to live in this country. And there's so
many men and women that have fought and died for
this country over its many years, and I feel like
I owe them at the very least this, if not more.
I feel guilty and spoiled to be able to enjoy
(17:57):
such a beautiful country and the freedom to try and
earn to make a living.
Speaker 4 (18:02):
And I didn't.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
I wasn't forced to join the service, I wasn't drafted,
I didn't join, I'm not a veteran, and how lucky
am I? And that's my outlook. And that's my outlook
every day. I always tell people.
Speaker 4 (18:16):
Like, you know, like, oh, what are you doing for
Memorial Day? Weekend? Or this is Memorial Today or Veterans Day?
Speaker 3 (18:20):
And I'm like, for me, every day is Memorial Day
and Veterans Day.
Speaker 4 (18:25):
It's just that's the way it is. With my family.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
I've kind of roped them into a lifetime of solitude
with me. And our goal is always to thank our veterans,
lift our veterans up, and do what we can to
honor them and say thank you.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
And a special thanks to Ray Bubba Sorensen for sharing
this beautiful story, and thanks as always to Monty for
doing such a great job on the production and what
a beautiful thing to do with your life.
Speaker 4 (18:58):
Ray.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Go to the free Edomarock dot com and donate to
the Freedomrock Foundation to help support the preservation of these
rock The story of Ray Bubbasarans and the story of
the Freedom Rock Here on our American Story
This is our American stories and up next a story
you likely won't forget. Across the state of Iowa, people
can find the Freedom Rocks. These rocks, painted by Ray
Bubba Sorensen, depict local military heroes and scenes of battle.
Is a thank you to American veterans. Here's our own
(00:30):
Monty Montgomery with the story.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Ray Bubba Sorenson was born in the heartland of America.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
So I was born in Creston, Iowa, and I grew
up in the little town of Fontnell, Iowa, about six
hundred people, you know, played about every sport and I
just had kind of your normal generic high school or
small town upbringing before technology really hit.
Speaker 4 (00:58):
I guess.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
So, my uncle Ted served in Vietnam as an AVCB,
and you know, most most of the country knows that.
Speaker 4 (01:11):
You know, our Vietnam veterans.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Weren't treated very well when they returned back from service,
and they came home to a very ungrateful nation, and
you know, some were spat on, some were you know,
protested as they got off buses and planes, and a
lot of those guys kind of hid their service or
were ashamed of their service. And my mom told me
about all that, and you know, that never sat well
(01:33):
with me. And then, of course, like as I was
growing up, movies like Rambo, TV shows like Tour of Duty,
old old shows, World War two dramas like Combat. My
mom would watch those with me, and although you know
they were you know, fictional, they were based on actual
narratives of Vietnam veterans, World War II veterans, So my
mom was able to kind of illustrate to me the
(01:55):
service and sacrifice of all these men and women, how
much especially our Korean which is a forgotten war, and
our Vietnam veterans were treated when they came back, and
that just really stuck with me, you know. And as
I grew up, I started to, I guess, parallel stories here.
Speaker 4 (02:11):
Become interested in art.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Like I said, I had a love for football, so
a lot of my artwork is you know, patriotic or
it was very much sports based.
Speaker 4 (02:19):
So you know, I kind of just started, I guess,
on this.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Diverging course of my love for veterans, and you know,
my patriotism growing and me growing as an artist just
kind of set me on this course too. I wanted
to say thank you to our veterans.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
But the birth of Ray's ultimate idea to say thank
you happened in a movie theater.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
What the ultimate spark was is I was sitting in
a movie theater watching the movie Save in Private, Ryan,
And you know, if you've seen.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
That movie, you know the first half hour, you know, our.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Men and you could even say boys, some of them
were seventeen sixteen, seventeen, eighteen years old, are literally storming
the beaches of Normandy, spilling their guts for our country.
And it was just so realistic, so in your face
of you know what, maybe a glimpse of what war
was like.
Speaker 4 (03:14):
And I just left the theater.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Saying, I've got to find a way to say thank
you to all our men and women that serve this country.
And that was kind of the birth of the Freedom Rock.
When I had the idea to you know, paint the
very first Freedom Rock, I thought, where am I going
to put this mural where? You know, I have no
experience as a mural artist. So for me, I wasn't
(03:38):
going to, you know, tap some business owner on the
shoulder and say, hey, can I have no experience at all?
Can I paint the site of your wall? So, you know,
my thoughts turned to the rock out there. The first
rock was known as just the rock.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
The rock. It sits nuts to a rock cory.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
And you know, they're mining, you know, gravel and limestone
and things out of this quarry and they.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
Hit this huge granite boulder.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
So they just left it there as a marker in
the entrance to the quarry, and kids started graffeeding it,
and I started tagging it with you know, all sorts
of stuff.
Speaker 4 (04:11):
You know, I think there's been.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Marriage proposals, there have been. There was a giant eminem
at once. There were there were I think one of
I have one of the pictures though. One of the
funnier ones was Santa Claus with his pants down moon
in the traffic around Christmas, and and that's just kind
of how it went. And I thought, Hey, for Memorial Day,
I'm gonna go out there. I'm gonna throw my paint
on there, say thank you to the veterans. And you know,
(04:33):
my thought was it's going to get painted over and
be long forgotten. You know, it was just going to
be my one time to say thank you, and then.
Speaker 4 (04:41):
It was going to continue to be graffiti through the years.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
I grabbed all the paint I could what I thought
was outdoor paint. I mixed oil and acrylic, which is
a huge no no in the art world. I had
no idea what I was doing, but I was going
to kind of teach myself how to paint a mural,
and so that was that was the star it and
I just it was bounded, determined to say thank you
to these veterans. And you know, my mom and dad
(05:06):
always tell this little side story. I'm a college student,
so I'm broke, and I was like, Mom, can you
buy the paint for this rock? I want to say
thank you to our veterans. And she called Dad and
she was like, I don't he wants to go paint
that large boulder north of town.
Speaker 4 (05:22):
You know, do I buy the paint. It's going to
be fifty bucks. And Dad was like, do it. Yeah,
that sounds like a heck of a project.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
And so they kind of both take credit for, you know,
buying the first paint for the original Freedom Rock, and
that's how it was born. I painted thank you Veterans
for our Freedom and the flag raising at Ewajima because
that is my all time favorite picture, and it happened
exactly like I thought. I painted it lasted for a
few months, thank you to the veterans. Somebody painted over it. Fine,
(05:49):
moving on. But the thing is is Memorial Day came
around again and some local veterans asked, hey, will you
go out there and paint that same thing that you
did last year for us?
Speaker 4 (05:59):
And I thought, you know what, I'm gonna do one better.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
And so I went out there and I painted Lee's
Heater's reflections, or at least a version of it, you know,
painting it on a rock.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
And like I said, as a as a budding mural artist,
I still have a lot to learn.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
But I gave a shot at you know, that famous
reflections Vietnam Veterans memorial wall painting and some other scenes,
and that ended up lasting.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
For an entire year, which was unheard of.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
With the rock, it always got painted over within a
month or two.
Speaker 4 (06:34):
But nobody touched that one.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
And so at last year and that with like around
the town around the Derek County where the rock was famous,
everybody's like, oh my god.
Speaker 4 (06:43):
Nobody's painted over the rock. Nobody, what's gonna happen? Nobody
painted over the rock? Are we just leaving this how
it is?
Speaker 3 (06:48):
And instead of doing that, I thought, well, I don't
want to kill the spirit of.
Speaker 4 (06:52):
The rock changing.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
You know, people kind of got used to it having
different artwork on it. So I thought, well, I'll go
out there and I'll paint another different scene thanking our veterans.
And so that's kind of what snowballed it into the
annual tradition of you know, I go out there at
the start of May, and I allow myself the month
of May I finish my new artwork thanking our veterans.
(07:16):
And I'm always done by Memorial Day, no matter what.
So some years get more detail than others, just depending
on weather and time and how many visitors I get.
And that's that's kind of the whole story of how
the rock became I guess my canvas of choice, and
how I've spent the past twenty two years repainting every Memorial.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Day, and since then raised project has expanded beyond the
original rock. It's a much much larger operation now. Because
of some interesting Iowen inspiration.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
I started the what's known as the Freedom Rock Tour.
I had the idea to try and paint a smaller
version of the original Free and Rock, and every single.
Speaker 4 (08:01):
One of Iowa's ninety nine counties.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
I don't know if you know, politics wise, we have
a very famous senator from Iowa, Chuck Grassley. He's always
known for doing what's called the full Grassly and that means,
you know, visiting every single Iowa county, you know, every
time he runs for reelection. And I thought, you know,
how neat of an idea is that to be able
to go to each one of our ninety nine counties,
(08:24):
and you know, how cool would it be as an
artist to have a piece of artwork in all.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
Of Iowa's ninety nine counties. And so that's kind of
where it was born.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
And my first idea was to try and do one
in all fifty states.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
And my wife was.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Like, hey, let's let's scale it back a little bit
and see, you know, let's let's keep you closer to
home and keep you in state. And so we kind
of talked it over and we decided to do the
one in every county in Iowa. And when we announced it,
I thought, you know, there's only going to be a
few people that get it, or you know, I was like,
(08:58):
I told my wife, I was like, if we book
ten in the first year, we'll be lucky, because I
just didn't figure people would jump on it that quickly.
We ended up booking sixty of the Iowa counties in
the first year, and then subsequently booked all the counties
and a few years after that and started off.
Speaker 4 (09:16):
And I just finished a week or two ago.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
I finished the ninety fifth out of ninety nine counties
in Iowa.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
And you're listening to Ray Bubba Sorensen tell his story
of the Freedom Rocks in Iowa. And it took saving
private Ryan Well to just act as a catalyst for
this endeavor, the Freedom Rocks. The story continues here on
our American stories, and we returned to our American stories
(10:12):
and the story of the Freedom Rocks painted rocks thanking
our veterans and found across the state of Iowa and
slowly moving across the United States. Right now shares with
us the stories of some of the memorable people he's
meant while painting these rocks. Take it away, Ray.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
I have a few really special stories that kind of
stick out. Probably the very first one is, you know,
goes with the guy that I call.
Speaker 4 (10:41):
The sergeant and Arms of the Rock.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
Now he's kind of been a caretaker of the flags
out there and just kind of overall maintenance of what's
going on with the grounds around it. He's a Vietnam
veteran and he was driving semi truck for one of
the local companies in town and I I just started
painting the one that the very first one, and I
(11:03):
have certain painting and I put the had the flag
raising done. I was I think I was working on
the lettering and he's coming down this large hill coming
towards the rock and he slams on the brakes of
the semi truck and pulls over. And I thought to myself, like,
oh crap, I'm in trouble for painting this rock. And
I kept telling myself like I had called the corry
and asked permission.
Speaker 4 (11:22):
I have every right to be here and paint this.
You know. This guy gets out of the truck and
he almost looks angry, and he's like, are you on
painting this?
Speaker 3 (11:29):
And I was like yes, and I was like sweating
a little bit, and he was like, I just want.
Speaker 4 (11:33):
To say thank you. He's like I was.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Vietnam veterans didn't get a very good welcome home, and
I appreciate, you know, people when they do stuff like
this for our veterans, and so it's become kind of
a lifelong friendship from there on out. And for the
past twenty two years he's kind of helped me keep
an eye on the rock and keep the flags up
and flying. And so that was that was one of
(11:55):
the memorable ones. Another one, you know, a few years
into painting it, I had a young man and I
say young man because I think he was younger than
me even at the time, and I was fairly young.
He had just gotten back from overseas, and he came
out and very polite, you know, said appreciated my work
was veteran. He also appreciated how quiet it was when
(12:19):
it wasn't a patriotic holiday. Like he didn't he didn't
come out to the rock on the Memorial days, the
fourth of July and things like that. He always came
out on a non holiday to sit and reflect. And
he also said that like he was had had He
told me, he's like I had suicidal thoughts. I wasn't
feeling very good about myself or my service. I came
(12:39):
out here, I sat on this little rock and I
stared at your rock, and he goes it just changed
my whole perspective. He goes, I don't want to get
all mushy about it. I just wanted to be I
wanted to tell you that, and I wanted to tell
you how much it.
Speaker 4 (12:53):
Meant to me.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
And then he got up and left, and I thought, Wow,
that's that was powerful, and that's one Stories like that
are one of the many reasons people always ask why
do you continue to do this? Why do you continue
to paint for our veterans? And it's veterans like that
that I don't know that I may be affecting in
a positive way, and I hope I am.
Speaker 4 (13:12):
I hope it's landing that way with all of them,
whether I get to talk to them or not.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
I go to tell my wife and I've told my
parents before. If I get to save one veteran or
if I've affected somebody like that, that's good enough for me.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Ray also creates as murals with more than just paint.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
I've actually painted the remains or cremains of many veterans
on the rock, or mixed them with the paint and
painted them on there. So at current, I'm around one
hundred and twenty different Vietnam veterans ashes are mixed into
the green paint of the helicopter on the north side
of the rock. And how that started was some Vietnam
(13:54):
veteran bikers that were on their way to the wall.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
In Washington, d C. For Memorial Day stopped at the rock.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
I was painting a tribute to our you know, Vietnam
veterans at the time, and they, you know, they absolutely
loved it, and they go, hey, can we go get
some ashes of our recently fallen Vietnam veteran brothers and
sprinkle them here by the rock? And I said, I
wish you'd just dump them in my paint can and
I'll paint them on the rock because it's so windy
out here, you know, I don't want them to blow
away in the wind. And they loved that idea, so they,
(14:23):
about seven or eight of them, went and got these
ashes and they kind of all dumped them into my
paint can and I mixed them up and painted it
all on these helicopters on the on the north side
of the rock.
Speaker 4 (14:34):
And they loved it.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
And I thought that was a neat little tribute, and
I thought it was over after that, and then I
started getting Vietnam veterans ashes in the mail, started getting
them from all over the country, and they came with letters,
and they came in different little pill boxes and ornate
vases and sometimes just ziploc bags, and they came saying,
(14:57):
this is my brother. He passed away from me an
orange exposure in Vietnam.
Speaker 4 (15:02):
Loved your rock, loved your work. Once to have parts
of his remains on.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
This rock got to the point where I don't think
my wife liked to go into the po box because
there was always cremains, you know, waiting for us to
And I just what I did is I collected them.
Speaker 4 (15:16):
Each year.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
I'd let them ride around in the truck with me
until it was Memorial Day and I was done with
the rock. And they were always my final addition at
one o'clock on Memorial Day.
Speaker 4 (15:28):
And they still are.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
So I still collect, you know, our Vietnam veterans who
who want to be part of the rock. I collect
their ashes and they all go on, we read their
names off, we paint them onto the rock, and they're
there forever. The hard part and how it's gotten harder
(15:50):
for me is I've known a lot of these veterans.
Now I've gotten to know them over the years, and
they've always said they want their final resting place to
be that rock. And then they've passed away, and it's
you know, yeah, I've become friends with these guys, and yeah,
it gets it gets harder and harder, but I always
try and say, you know, it's a unique memorial and
(16:11):
kind of a unique place for them to be and
I'm so honored to even be a part of it.
One of the guys that was in the veterans hospital
out in Omaha, his son called me and said, can
I bring my dad out to the rock? He is
not in good health. Would you meet us out there?
And I said absolutely, I'll go out there and say hi,
I'm in town. And went out there and met him
(16:33):
and shook his hand, and he had oxygen hooked up
to him, and he was like, well, the hospital wasn't
very crazy about us getting him out here, but he
really wanted to see the rock. He wanted to touch
the rock, and he'd like to ask you if he
can be have his ashes put on the rock. And
I said, well absolutely, but you know, stick around. Let's
you know, we'd like to see get better. And what
I didn't know was that he was in his final days,
(16:55):
and two days later I got the call that he
had passed and his ashes were on the way, and
so his family came out and we I believe we
didn't do that when on Memorial Day. I think we
did it on like July fourth, because they just they
wanted to have like more of a private ceremony and
have the ashes go on in that way.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
But I just thought, that's it's.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
Amazing how much the Freedom Rock's message has gotten out there,
and I'm glad it has, and it's kind of amazing
the response and how many veterans want to be a
part of it, and that could could make me happier.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
I've just I guess I would say I.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
I don't know how to describe it, but I feel
very lucky to live in this country. And there's so
many men and women that have fought and died for
this country over its many years, and I feel like
I owe them at the very least this, if not more.
I feel guilty and spoiled to be able to enjoy
(17:57):
such a beautiful country and the freedom to try and
earn to make a living.
Speaker 4 (18:02):
And I didn't.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
I wasn't forced to join the service, I wasn't drafted,
I didn't join, I'm not a veteran, and how lucky
am I? And that's my outlook. And that's my outlook
every day. I always tell people.
Speaker 4 (18:16):
Like, you know, like, oh, what are you doing for
Memorial Day? Weekend? Or this is Memorial Today or Veterans Day?
Speaker 3 (18:20):
And I'm like, for me, every day is Memorial Day
and Veterans Day.
Speaker 4 (18:25):
It's just that's the way it is. With my family.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
I've kind of roped them into a lifetime of solitude
with me. And our goal is always to thank our veterans,
lift our veterans up, and do what we can to
honor them and say thank you.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
And a special thanks to Ray Bubba Sorensen for sharing
this beautiful story, and thanks as always to Monty for
doing such a great job on the production and what
a beautiful thing to do with your life.
Speaker 4 (18:58):
Ray.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Go to the free Edomarock dot com and donate to
the Freedomrock Foundation to help support the preservation of these
rock The story of Ray Bubbasarans and the story of
the Freedom Rock Here on our American Story
Host
Lee Habeeb
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