By Brian M. Boyce
TERRE HAUTE — Preparations are under way as the veterans organizations of Vigo County plan communitywide funeral honors for a native son.
“The whole purpose of it is to be aware of the price paid for us to be free today,” Cliff Stephens, adjutant of the Vigo County Veterans Council, said Wednesday morning.
Army Sgt. Dale R. Griffin was among soldiers killed in southern Afghanistan last week when their vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb. Part of Operation Enduring Freedom there, Griffin joined the Army immediately after the 9/11 terrorist attacks against New York and Washington, D.C.
A 1999 graduate of Terre Haute South Vigo High School, Griffin was state runner-up wrestling in the 189-pound weight class his senior season. The following year, he won his weight class to help lead the Virginia Military Institute to a fourth-place finish in the All-Academy Wrestling Championship in 2000 at the U.S. Air Force Academy. He was named that tournament’s Most Outstanding Wrestler.
On Veterans Day, the Vigo County Veterans Council will modify its Annual Veterans Day Parade to serve as a funeral procession.
The procession will commence at Fourth Street and Wabash Avenue at 10 a.m. Sgt. Griffin’s flag-draped coffin will follow the Terre Haute Police Department’s Honor Guard as the Terre Haute North Vigo High School marching band performs.
A brief ceremony will be conducted at VFW Post 972 at 12th and Eagle streets at 11:11 a.m. prior to the coffin’s transport to Terre Haute South. A public funeral ceremony will be hosted there at 2 p.m. inside the gymnasium.
Also, Amvets Post 222, through donations from local citizens, will erect a 21-foot-by-16-foot pavilion at 2420 Fifth Ave. to be named the Sgt. Dale Russel Griffin Memorial Pavilion. The facility will be used in the 2009 Veterans Day ceremonies that will include an observance for Sgt. Kyle W. Childress of Terre Haute, who was killed Jan. 21, 2005, in Iraq.
Brian Boyce can be reached at 812-231-4253 or brian.boyce@tribstar.com.
