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Salem to honor local veterans
A new monument will list the names of local residents who died fighting in all of America’s wars.
SALEM — Clyde Brown knows much about a relative who served in the Civil War.
His great-grandfather, Amos, was among those who gave his life for his country.
Relatives of Salem’s fallen who died in different wars will place roses at the new Hope Cemetery War Memorial during a ceremony at 11 a.m. Saturday.
Brown will place a rose for the local servicemen slain in the Civil War.
“I cherish the honor,” Brown said Thursday.
Amos Brown, who lived in New Albany just north of Salem, enlisted in the 6th Ohio Volunteer Calvary.
While accompanying a wagon train near the James River in Virginia, the private was wounded and captured in a raid by forces commanded by Confederate Gen. Wade Hampton. Amos was put in the notorious Andersonville prison, but was later moved to Millen, Ga., where he died of his wounds and starvation just before the war ended.
John Szymcyk of Salem, adjutant for the Disabled American Veterans, Salem Chapter 122, heard of a memorial that listed the names of local service people who died in all of the country’s wars, and in 2006 came up with the idea for a local memorial.
Szymcyk said that memorials were normally erected for the fallen in a given war.
A Civil War monument at Hope Cemetery, complete with a statue of a soldier, has no names. That figure, which is on a small rise, is behind the new memorial.
Szymcyk added that there were two people living in the Salem area who fought and died during the American Revolution. Their relatives haven’t been located.
He said that records do not show anyone from Salem died fighting during the War of 1812.
But 68 Salem residents were killed in the Civil War. Eight died in World War I, 53 died in World War II, 14 died in Korea and five died in Vietnam.
Szymcyk was in the 11th Airborne and his leg was broken during a training jump. Szymcyk, after leaving the Army in 1949, tried his hand at designing and selling monuments.
The memorial will include an eternal flame. Szymcyk said he took a try at a tentative design that was based on the low, circular flame at the grave of President John F. Kennedy.
Don Rock of Logue Monument Co. in Salem came up with a better plan that puts the flame in the center of a star, Szymcyk said.
The new memorial consists of three flagpoles, standing granite engraved with information, benches with the names of the fallen, and the flame.
Response to the plan has been strong.
When Szymcyk came up with a proposal, he sent it to 380 people and “the response was 200 donors.”
About half of the $50,000 cost of the monument has been raised, he said.
Sam McKinney, who has been the coordinator of the project, said that Jim Dickens of Salem, the former VFW state commander, will be the moderator.
The speaker will be retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Robert McCluggage of Salem. He flew during World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam.
Clyde Brown said he is deeply interested in the Civil War because of his family’s history.
wilkinson@vindy.com