Walkway at Soldiers Memorial Park to honor vets
By:
Jason Miller
The LaPorte Herald-Argus
The late Bob Cutler Sr. dedicated a lot of his time to working for
veterans.
As a former veterans services officer for LaPorte County,
the one-time president
of Cutler Funeral Home helped with memorials,
organized events and basically,
his friends say,
"lived and breathed the well-being of vets."
And now, as a local veterans group embarks on the creation of a memorial
for
LaPorte County vets, he will be honored with the first brick in a monument
that
could end up paying homage to over 10,000 veterans.
"People have forever been working toward helping vets," said Barb
Hagenow,
a member of the Mayor's Veterans Committee. "But Bob lived and
breathed it.
Vet events have always been a high priority on Bob's list."
Cutler, who died this past June, will be the first local vet honored for his
military service
by way of a brick-lined memorial the committee plans to build
in Soldiers Memorial Park
on Pine Lake Avenue.
The "Veterans Walkway of Honor" will be built in front of the four war
memorials
that currently adorn the park. It will feature bricks engraved with
the names,
rank, branch and service time of LaPorte County vets.
The project is not a moneymaker, said Jim Hagenow. It is simply a way to honor
those who represented their country with some type of military service.
"We're doing this inexpensively because we're not interested in making
money,"
he said. "This is just a good way for family to honor those
who served."
The committee, headed by current LaPorte Mayor Carl Krentz, will charge $25 each
for the bricks. That cost, Jim Hagenow said, will include the brick, labor and
engraving.
They hope to lay the first set of bricks around Memorial Day 2000.
Currently, the space the committee has mapped out as the site of the walkway
can
hold as many as 5,500 bricks. The city-owned land - which the committee won't
have to pay for - can be expanded to hold another 5,000 or so, according to Jim
Hagenow.
That, though, would include incorporating the existing monuments in the plan.
"If we had over the original number, we'd probably have to make small
patios around
the monuments," he said. "There are 16,000 living vets
in LaPorte County so it could
expand."
While memorials exist in LaPorte and other cities for veterans from their
respective towns,
the Veterans Walkway of Honor will represent all of LaPorte
County.
"From Rolling Prairie to Wanatah, we want veterans to be honored," Jim
Hagenow said.
When the project gets rolling, the committee will most likely make the addition
of bricks
a yearly happening. Hagenow said each May - around Memorial Day -
would probably
be the best time to add bricks. Laying a brick or two at a time, he said, isn't prudent.
"We won't do it piecemeal," he said. "Probably each May we'll lay
new brick."
And the committee members hope they'll need to lay new brick every year. That
would
signify a want among county residents to honor veterans.
"We hope to reach as many (vets) as we can," said committee member Bob
Truesdell.
"I feel that after they initially see (what's happening with the
memorial) they'll say
'that's something I should do.'"
A 90-DAY SIGN-UP period for purchase of the initial round of bricks will begin
Sept. 1,
according to committee members, with order
forms becoming available throughout the
county. They will be available at
Krentz' office, many banks, service posts
and the park board offices, as well as
other locations countywide.
