There are an awful lot of things to respect about Wayne County's Veteran's Memorial Park, an incredibly well developed park that sets the tone for this type of park in the state of Indiana.
It begins with the little things - actually getting the domain name for the park so that people can easily find out about it. That's such a basic thing to do, but I'm amazed how many parks don't do it.
The Park is located in the Whitewater Gorge and can be accessed via automobile via the Johnson Street entrance or via foot over the pedestrian suspension bridge on Sim Hodgin Parkway or via the Whitewater Gorge walking/bike trail.
The park includes a variety of memorials worth mentioning including memorials for conflicts not often recognized.
For example, there's a monument for conflicts from 1980-1996 including the Iranian Hostage conflict, Lebanon, Grenada, Panama, the Persian Gulf War, Haiti, and Somalia.
There's a monument for POW's and those still MIA.
There are individual monuments dedicated to area residents who served.
There are multiple Vietnam monuments, markers, and benches.
There's a monument to the Korean War.
World Wars I and II are obviously honored.
There's a monument to the U.S. Civil War that notes 320 Wayne County residents died during the conflict.
Families can purchase memorial bricks, benches, and other markers for placement in the park. The website also lists the name of every soldier honored with a brick (again, this speaks to fabulous organization of the park).
The park has a Memorial for Women Soldiers, a Purple Heart Memorial, two M3A3 Stuart Tanks, a HUEY Helicopter, an M60 tank, two naval guns, and more. It's a surprisingly large park that honors vets with dignity and respect and it's very well cared for. It was developed by veterans for veterans.
The entrance to the park is just west of the Sheriff's building (super easy to find in Richmond).
For veterans, this is a remarkable park to visit and for families of veterans in this area it's a wonderful way to honor your loved one. Richmond has a surprising number of monuments and is easily worth a day trip for a variety of spots. I spent several years attending seminary here and it's a wonderful little community and they've certainly done right by their veterans here. read more