namvets.com  Welcome home Bothers and Sisters!

Remembering sacrifice

 

Visitors to the Medal of Honor Memorial in Indianapolis are silhouetted against the glass panel etched with the names of those awarded the medal. AP Photo/MICHAEL CONROY First in a three-part Memorial Day series Sunday: Meaning of memorials is lost on high school students Monday: Search for memorial names difficult task Also coming Sunday: A war orphan's search for the father she never knew. Monday: North Judson adds to list of fountain memorial's names Tuesday: Medal of Honor recipient's sister presents medal to Culver Academies. Coverage of area Memorial Day events.

INDIANAPOLIS

Throughout Indiana, there are reminders. Simple comments carved in marble and limestone, tawny plaques hanging on courthouse walls, larger-than-life figures of helmeted World War I "doughboys," marching, pointing, tapping us on the shoulder as we drive past.

Reminders. Monuments erected to preserve the memory of those who kept us free.

Indiana, some boast, is second only to Washington, D.C., in its number of war memorials. Starting with the towering Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument on the circle in downtown Indianapolis, they branch out to the sprawling Veterans National Memorial Shrine in Fort Wayne, down to the limestone pillars of the Bartholomew County Veterans Memorial in Columbus and the beige stone doughboy statue near Logansport's city building.

The list goes on.

From elaborate structures to simple headstones, the state has long prided itself on finding ways to remember its veterans.

"I can tell you honestly that I don't believe there is a state in the Union that has made as much of a commitment of its treasures, its

resources to its veterans as Indiana has," says Bill Sweeney, director of the Indiana War Memorial. "Virtually every city and town that you go to has something."

And, Sweeney says, it all started at the center of Indianapolis, with a 284-foot-tall monument and the memory of the Civil War.

Nearly three-quarters of Indiana's population fought for the Union in the Civil War, and more than 24,000 Hoosiers died in battle. Only Delaware had a higher percentage of its population join the ranks.

"You couldn't have lived in Indiana without being intimately touched by the Civil War," Sweeney says. "I believe that was such a wrenching, emotional event for the entire state that they had to do something significant to show how much they felt and sacrificed."

First tribute

The first call for a memorial in Indianapolis went out before the war was even over. The Soldiers and Sailors Monument was authorized in 1887 and completed in 1902.

It stands now amid the steady swirl of a traffic circle, crowned with the 38-foot-tall "Victory" statue, a woman atop a globe holding a sword and raising a torch to the heavens, representing the light of civilization. The gray oolitic limestone structure that tapers up to the statue is still Indianapolis' most recognizable landmark, with daily droves of visitors resting along its 70-foot-long stone steps or feeling the cool mist from fountains that cascade down two sides.

Glory-June Greiff, a public historian and expert on Indiana's sculptures, says the state has at least 60 Civil War-related sculptures, as well as a number of simpler memorials. The first was erected in Princeton in 1865, right after the war's end.

"We got right on it," Greiff says, "but the earlier ones tended to be that variety of monument that would be a simple shaft or column, maybe with an eagle on top or the depiction of a flag over it."

Edward Sanders, a World War II veteran, is an active supporter of the planned World War II memorial in Washington, D.C. Tribune Photo/SANTIAGO FLORES If you go ... Directions: The Indianapolis memorials are all downtown. The best place to start is the Soldiers and Sailors Monument, which is on the traffic circle in the middle of downtown. The Indiana War Memorial Plaza starts two blocks north of the circle on Meridian Street. The Medal of Honor Memorial is on the north bank of the Central Canal in White River State Park, adjacent to Military Park. The USS Indianapolis Memorial is at Senate Avenue and Walnut Street. Hours: There are two Indiana War Memorial Museums. A time-line museum of Indiana's role in U.S. conflicts is in the lower level of the Indiana War Memorial building. The Colonel Eli Lilly Civil War Museum is in the lower level of the Soldiers and Sailors Monument. Both are open 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday. All other memorials are outdoors and are open during daylight hours. Admission: There is no admission charge for the memorials or museums. The two museums do accept donations. Information: Call (317) 232-7615 or visit the Web site at www.state.in.us/iwm/ By The Associated Press

The monuments grew more elaborate over the years, with the Soldiers and Sailors Monument being the largest in the state. Monument building in Indiana was at its peak from the 1890s through the 1910s.

But, as Sweeney points out, there would be more to come.

"It wasn't long after the Soldiers and Sailors Monument was dedicated that we were back in war again," Sweeney says. "This time the war to end all wars."

The Great War

By the end of World War I, Hoosiers again were clamoring to honor the soldiers who'd survived the dogfights and trenches.

"The emotion of the Civil War carried over into the next generation," Sweeney says. "The numbers were less in the World War, but what they believed they accomplished was even more."

The American Legion formed after the war, and an influential group of Indiana members started rallying for the organization to be headquartered in Indianapolis. Promising a memorial plaza five blocks long and a building rising 210-feet from street level, the group got its wish. The headquarters was completed in 1925, and work on the Indiana World War Memorial building began in 1926.

Across the state, other memorials were developing. They ranged from elaborate statues to simple grave markers, like the marble headstones that makeup the Legion's Circle veterans graveyard in Logansport.

In 1920, Henry County's war veterans were honored by the dedication of the Henry County Memorial Park, a 37-acre plot. That park now has grown to 362 acres, honors local efforts in all wars, and stands as the state's largest memorial.

Resto D'Andrea, the Cass County Veterans Affairs officer, says this drive to build memorials makes sense, given the nature of Indiana's residents.

"I think one of the things is that Indiana was settled by a lot of conservative people," D'Andrea says. "We're a conservative state, and when a war starts it is so gigantic we feel that those that participated need to be honored."

So now the state has memorials for every war, including one for the Persian Gulf in Evansville, the first in the state to depict a male and a female soldier. The Spencer County Memorial Forest, established in 1948, honors World War II veterans. Along the Central Canal in Indianapolis is the USS Indianapolis National Memorial and the Medal of Honor Memorial. The list goes on.

"Indiana had the last person killed in the Civil War," Greiff says. "We also had the last doughboy killed, officially."

The USS Indianapolis was the last ship sunk in World War II.

"We were just always right in the middle of things," Greiff says.

Daily reminders

On Memorial Day, the reminders are out there, built into courthouse lawns, hanging in museums, standing and staring into the distance.

Brian Naranjo, a veteran and spokesman for the National Headquarters of the American Legion, says veterans see these monuments a bit differently.

"We think about it every day," he says. "We think about all the people that died before us, so that we could be free, so that we could live our lives."

Outside his office is the grassy, five-block plaza that brought the American Legion to Indianapolis in 1925, dedicated to veterans, dotted with solemn monuments honoring Indiana men and women touched or tormented by wars past. Veterans like Naranjo and D'Andrea hope others will look, think about them as they pass by, remember.

But Naranjo sees a broader picture.

"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance," he says. "The world is a memorial."