INDIANAPOLIS — A memorial designed by a Terre Haute artist honoring Indiana National Guard soldiers will include a bronze sculpture of a Guardsman holding a child and be lit at night, organizers say.
The Hoosier Patriot Memorial will cost about $250,000 in private funds. Groundbreaking is set for May 22 at Washington Park East Cemetery, with dedication set for Veterans Day.
The effort was started by Bert Pettygrove, who organized a welcome home ceremony in 2002 saluting several hundred Guardsmen who had just returned from Bosnia-Herzegovina. He realized then the city had no significant monuments honoring the Indiana Guard. He, along with Flanner and Buchanan Funeral Centers, decided to change that.
After five years of planning, renderings of the memorial were revealed Wednesday.
Its sculpture, called "The Rescue," was created by Bill Wolfe of Terre Haute. The grounds also will include a glass backdrop with a "Minuteman" rendition and a landscaped plaza with flag poles, a lake and a fountain.
"This is something that should have been done a long time ago," said Pettygrove, an employee at Washington Park.
Inscribed on the memorial will be a quote from George Washington: "When we assume the soldier, we do not lay aside the citizen."
The cemetery and Flanner and Buchanan will pay for the memorial.
Plans for the memorial were scaled back when retired Indiana Court of Appeals Judge Paul H. Buchanan Jr., a member of the Buchanan funeral home family, decided it would be better to finish the memorial than wait for extra money to be raised for a larger one.
"It identifies not only what they did in the past, but what we're doing currently in the present and what we'll do in the future," said Lance Langsford, a City-County Council member who is a lieutenant colonel in the Guard and served in Bosnia and Afghanistan. "It establishes that legacy."
On the Web: www.HoosierPatriotMemorial.com
