The Hebron Town Council on Tuesday voted unanimously to approve a lease for 1.47 acres of land to the Friends of the Veterans Memorial Parkway, Inc. (FVMP) for the construction of a memorial to Northwest Indiana military veterans who served and those who lost their lives in conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.
The site is located on the old Pennsylvania Railroad right-of-way, on property owned by the town. The 1.47-acres linear parcel is bounded by U.S. 231 on the south and Wilson Street on the north.
The FVMP has successfully developed a memorial site on U.S. 231 just east of Leroy for the veterans of the Korean War, with another memorial under development in Crown Point honoring those who served in World Wars I and II, which will include a special remembrance for victims of the Holocaust.
Connecting all three of these sites is the Veterans Memorial Trail, which will start at the World Wars site and traverse nine miles southwest to Hebron. Lake County Parks is overseeing the development of the trail to the Lake-Porter County Line and Hebron will finish the remaining one mile into their downtown through a recently awarded grant from the Indiana Department of Natural Resources.
The newest property will be called the Northwest Indiana Middle East Veterans Memorial and will honor those from Lake, Porter, LaPorte, Newton, Jasper, Starke and Pulaski Counties who died in service to our country in Middle Eastern conflicts.
The FVMP expects to begin site work later this summer, with an expected site dedication service planned for Veterans Day in November. Additional information about this memorial, as well as other FVMP endeavors, is available online at www.vetparkway.com