If the Dayton Coffee Shop was a flower garden, it would be blooming with photographs, and owner Donna Freels has a corner patch where she wants to see new pictures sprout.

From the hundreds of snapshots spread beneath glass tabletops–photos of patrons, current and former, living and dead–to the framed 8-by-10 prints of customer’s children and grandchildren that hang on the wall behind the checkout counter, familiar smiles and the grins of strangers blend to greet customers at nearly every turn.

But one corner of the restaurant is barren of images.

“I’ve been saving that front corner,” Freels said. “I wasn’t sure what I would do with it, but now I know.”

Freels wants to turn the corner into a photographic tribute to the men and women of the United States Armed Forces.

A large framed map of Iraq, given to Freels by a patron recently, will serve as the centerpiece of the display. Freels plans to hang it on the wall and use it to identify the locations where local service members are stationed now or have been stationed during Operation Iraqi Freedom. ….more