Behind and to the left of the soldier a couple years ago a Vietnam War Memorial was added.
Veterans Park is a sprawling park at the center of the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex.
A beautiful park with an equally beautiful Veterans Memorial.
Long ago I made a webpage about Veterans Park, which shows the scope of the park, but I think that webpage was made before the memorials were added.
In Dallas, at Fair Park, there is an excellent Vietnam War Memorial which emulates the Vietnam War Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C. On the Dallas Wall all the names of Texans who died in the Vietnam War are engraved.
A new Veterans Memorial was dedicated on Saturday in the Fort Worth suburb of Haltom City.
There are likely many other Veterans Memorials in the D/FW zone which I do not know about.
There is an obscure Vietnam War Memorial in Fort Worth. I say it is obscure because I accidentally happened upon it whilst exploring the Fort Worth Botanic Garden. I blogged about this in Charlie Company Memorial in Fort Worth's Botanic Garden. The Charlie Company Memorial may be the best such thing I have ever seen. One would have to have a heart of ice not to be touched by the story told at the Charlie Company Memorial. And it makes one proud of Fort Worth and the people of Fort Worth.
A half century ago.
I do not understand why a bigger deal is not made of the Charlie Company Memorial, with the memorial brought out of the shady shadows and made easy to find with directional signs.
A couple months ago I attended an event at Lake Wichita celebrating finally getting Army Corps of Engineer approval for fixing Lake Wichita. Part of that event involved plans for a Wichita Falls Veterans Memorial, to be located at the to be upgraded boat launch dock on Lake Wichita. A local car dealer donated a half million bucks to the Veterans Memorial, making the donation with one of those giant checks you see when someone wins something like the million bucks on Survivor.
One can also buy a personalized brick to help pay for the Wichita Falls Veterans Memorial. I do not know why personalized bricks seem to be the go to fund raiser for this type thing in Texas. That and car washes.
A couple days ago I was thinking about all the Veterans Memorials in Texas, maybe this was triggered by the one I see one directed to when passing by the small town of Alvord, between D/FW and Wichita Falls, and this got me trying to remember if there is any sort of Veterans Memorial in my old home zone of the Skagit Valley, in Mount Vernon, or the town I grew up in, Burlington, or in any of the other towns or parks in the valley. I could remember none.
I did remember that Anacortes has some sort of Seafarer Memorial dedicated to those who are lost at sea. As in fishermen, based in Anacortes, usually lost whilst fishing the rough seas of Alaska.
I can not remember any Veterans Memorial in Seattle. Or Tacoma. Or Olympia. I'm sure such must exist, in some form, but I don't remember.
It has crossed my mind that all these memorials may be a fine thing, but that it would be more impressive, to me, if rather than dedicating yet one more memorial, a town might do something more memorable, like put that money to helping Veterans, to making sure there are Veteran services in your town, to making sure you have no homeless Veterans in your town, to doing all you can do to prevent a Veteran from getting so desperate that suicide is the only option in your town.
How many millions of bucks and hours of time have been spent on multiple Veterans Memorials in Texas, I can not help but wonder. And I also can not help but wonder could not that money and time have been put to a more meaningful memorial to Veterans?
Anyway, that's what seeing that sign on 287 pointing to an Alvord Veterans Memorial made me think about. That and why isn't Veterans Park in Arlington sufficient to cover all the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex Veterans Memorial needs, like Arlington covers D/FW's professional ball park needs...
