The six brick pillars stand in solitary silence in a corner of New Whiteland’s Proctor Park.
Etched into the stonework are 1,533 names, the black lettering stark against the pale red masonry. Each name represents an Indiana resident who died in the Vietnam War.
For those county residents who served in the war and who have discovered the memorial, this is a place of great meaning.
“I go over sometimes just to walk on the concrete pad, to walk among the pillars and find the names of the people I knew,” said Frank Vaughn, a New Whiteland resident and Vietnam War veteran. “It brings back a lot of different types of memories, but at the same time, I leave feeling good. Much better than when I got there.”
Johnson County is preparing to welcome The Wall That Heals, a replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C., later this week. But while excitement over the wall’s arrival is warranted, local veterans and those associated with Proctor Park want to make people aware of the county’s own Vietnam War memorial — one unique in Indiana and around the country as well.
“That is sacred ground. I’m so proud that it’s in our town, and I want people to know it’s there. It’s not just for Whiteland and New Whiteland, it’s not just for Johnson County. It’s for everyone,” said Maribeth Alspach, the clerk-treasurer of New Whiteland and one of the main drivers of Proctor Park. “It’s a way to honor those people and preserve their stories and legacies, to keep their names alive.”
Proctor Park, 499 Tracy Road, was founded as a tribute to Sgt. Joseph E. Proctor, a Whiteland Community High School graduate and former New Whiteland resident who was killed while serving in Iraq in 2006. Town officials wanted to honor his death, and turned an 11-acre parcel of land off Tracy Road into a monument park.
In addition to a walking trail, fishing pond and playgrounds, numerous memorials and monuments dot the landscape. Individual memorials recognize veterans of all military branches, as well as police, fire and first responders.
“We want to really bring alive the idea that we live in this country. We live with the freedoms that we have, not by chance. It’s been generation upon generation of sacrifice for us to be able to live the way we live today,” Alspach said.
A special monument remembers Indiana military personnel killed since the start of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2003. A bench recognizes those who fought and died in the Korean War.
Overlooking the pond, a monument representing the USS Indianapolis serves as a “tribute to the Greatest Generation, those men and women who served and sacrificed during World War II,” according to an etched stone set at the memorial’s base.
But for many, it is the Vietnam memorial that is the park’s most striking, emotional feature.
“It’s important, regardless of when people served or how they served, to be able to honor them and have something where they know people are recognizing their contribution and sacrifice,” said Steve Young, who served in Vietnam in the early 1970s. “That’s important for any era. But having lived through the Vietnam era, a lot of the guys who served in that war came back to a very difficult situation.
“It’s very important for the people who served in Vietnam to have a recognition and a commemoration.”
Young often traveled down Tracy Road and passed by Proctor Park after it was built. The Morgantown-area resident appreciated the respect the parks monuments gave to veterans from different eras.
Young was sent to Vietnam to fly F-100 fighter planes during the war in the U.S. Air Force. He had joined the service in 1968, went through pilot training and then left for the war in 1979. By the end of the year, the military was starting to phase down its involvement, and Young was sent home.
The rest of his 12-year active duty was spent training pilots at varying assignments.
So when he found out New Whiteland officials wanted to build a special memorial honoring Vietnam veterans in Indiana, he and his wife Anne felt strongly about supporting it.
“As they started building the different parts of the park, we had seen a notice that they wanted to build a Vietnam memorial. Being a Vietnam veteran, that was something I was very interested in,” he said. “We became involved in developing the memorial.”
Vaughn, who has lived in New Whiteland since 1977, became involved with Proctor Park when a committee was formed to mold the memorial greenspace. His daughters had gone to school with Proctors, and they had known the family for years.
Vaughn spent his entire career in the military, last serving as chief warrant officer 5 in the Indiana National Guard. At the time that Proctor Park was coming together, he was on the staff of now-retired Maj. Gen. R. Martin Umbarger, who was the adjutant general of the Indiana National Guard. Umbarger had received a request from the town to have someone from the military be a representative on the Proctor Park committee to ensure the monuments and memorials were accurate.
Knowing that Vaughn was a New Whiteland resident, Umbarger asked him to be the representative. He has been active in it ever since.
From the beginning, there was a desire to do a Vietnam veterans memorial. During the dedication of Proctor Park, Alspach invited anyone in the crowd who had been Vietnam to step forward. The call-out hadn’t been planned, but the emotion of the day motivated it, Alspach said.
“We had about eight guys come up,” she said. “I was surprised, but I just told them that I was so sorry. They never got welcomed home, no one ever did a parade for them. No one ever appreciated their sacrifice. From that event, the feeling was born that we had to do something for these guys.”
The memorial had personal meaning for Vaughn. In addition to serving in Vietnam himself, he had three other cousins who served in the war — one of which was killed in 1971. Many of his friends from high school also served in the war, two that died in 1968.
“From the very start of the planning stages, it had a special meaning to me,” he said. “Part of it was difficult for me, but also, I was hoping it would be like the wall in D.C. — a place to reflect and kind of let things go away.”
Planning for the Vietnam memorial was ongoing for years. Those involved started raising money throughout the community, finding that many people wanted to support the effort. Planners worked with Mark Trina, owner of Blast Masters masonry company and a U.S. Navy veteran himself, to design a monument.
Organizers researched Indiana residents who had been killed in Vietnam, wanting to include every Hoosier who had given his life in the war.
“We felt it was important because every one of those names was an Indiana soldier,” Vaughn said. “Making sure the names are on there, so the families or others who knew them can go and actually see the name, realizing how many there are. It gives it a whole new meaning to it.”
On Sept. 27, 2014, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated. The ceremony was attended by state and local officials, military personnel and local veterans.
The ceremony was moving, seeing the finished monument with all the names, Young said.
Those feelings have not diminished over the past seven years.
“It will stand there forever, not only for people who served, but for their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, to see something that will recognize their contribution to what they did for the country,” Young said.
