Paul Rock spent part of his senior year helping soldiers who will never be able to thank him.

Rock and 15 other members of Boy Scouts Troop 21 of Brice Prairie visited nine La Crosse County cemeteries and surveyed the headstones that designate the graves of war-time veterans killed during the 1800s.

Troop members located 505 headstones for veterans of the War of 1812, the Spanish-American War and the Civil War. They surveyed the condition of each headstone and noted whether it required cleaning or repair. Rock also filled out applications for 14 headstones that need to be replaced.

La Crosse County veterans service officer Jim Gausmann, who supplied Rock with the list of veterans names and graves, said Rock did a wonderful job on the project, which he used to earn his Eagle Scout award.

"We don't have time to go out to all these cemeteries ourselves," Gausmann said. "We're reviewing these (reports), and plan on ordering replacements thanks to Paul's cemetery work."

Rock said he got the idea for the project from Jeff Blakley, one of his troop leaders, who participates in Civil War reenactments. He said it took 3 1/2 months to complete the project, and he spent 46.5 hours on it himself - and that doesn't includes the time spent by other troop members.

"The whole point of the Eagle project is to show your leadership," Rock said. "Other scouts in my troop helped out to put in their service hours."

Rock joined the Cub Scouts in second grade, and stayed with it so long because it was important to his grandfather, he said. Later, it became his own goal to earn the Eagle Scout Award.

The most interesting headstone Rock said he found was one that said, "Born a slave; died free," in a West Salem cemetery.

The Holmen High School senior said he learned more about history by doing the project because his troop leader told soldier stories as they looked for the markers.

Jim Ertz, administrator for Hillview Health Care Center, said Eagle Scout projects are important to the La Crosse community because they involve projects that would not otherwise get done.

Ertz said one scout created a system to help visitors find graves in the adjacent cemetery next to the care center a couple of years ago. More recently, others have constructed courtyard planting boxes and a wooden platform that allows residents to fish in a pond behind the center.

"We've had several projects done over the years," Ertz said. "These are outside the type of things we'd be able to do internally ourselves."