Honoring Vietnam's Fallen - Indiana

Dedicated to maintaining headstones of Vietnam vets who did not come home alive and are buried in private cemeteries. Inspired to action by @44MagnumBlue1

[Honoring Vietnam's Fallen - Indiana @RestoreHsVT]

I've put together a document outlining steps for locating, identifying, and cleaning of Vietnam KIA markers.

Many people have asked for this so I hope you find it useful and can locate a veteran to take care of.

Feel free to hit me up with questions. 🇺🇸

https://t.co/Y5b6lR2kkL

[Honoring Vietnam's Fallen - Indiana @RestoreHsVT]

Cool Gunny 🇺🇸

[Gunny Williams USMC Retired 🇺🇸 @gunny_retired]

At Arlington National Cemetery visited the graves of one set of my wife's great grand parents and one set of her great great grandparents. Very cool for a military history buuf like me.

[Honoring Vietnam's Fallen - Indiana @RestoreHsVT]

Ernie was an incredible writer.

Heavy stuff for a lunch break but worth it.

[Patrick Kerin @PatrickKerin1]

"A Long Thin Line of Personal Anguish": Ernie Pyle on the Normandy Beachhead https://t.co/JFU6bfsgPD #ErniePyle #DDay #WWII #Indiana #Midwest #Normandy

[Steve Bean @shsfan475]

@RestoreHsVT Yesterday while in Lafayette, I visited the grave of Capt. Mary T. Klinker in Saint Boniface Cemetery. She was the last armed forces nurse to die in the Vietnam War. She was killed in the crash of a C-5A Galaxy at the beginning of Operation Babylift.

[Honoring Vietnam's Fallen - Indiana @RestoreHsVT]

@shsfan475 Very cool Steve, thanks for visiting.

(40°26'44.1"N 86°51'42.5"W)

[Honoring Vietnam's Fallen - Indiana @RestoreHsVT]

CC: @ErniePyleMuseum 🇺🇸

https://t.co/kFJz1p2ugc

[MoundLore @MoundLore]

Ernie Pyle was a war correspondent.

When he was killed by Japanese machine-gun fire on Ie Shima in 1945, soldiers buried him among the men he had spent the war writing about.

Later, his remains were moved to the Punchbowl, where he still rests today.

For a writer who dedicated his career to telling the stories of ordinary soldiers, it’s hard to imagine a more fitting place to be buried.

[Honoring Vietnam's Fallen - Indiana @RestoreHsVT]

@Elwoodlencon Thanks. Nice calm evening to sit outside and count my blessings.

[Honoring Vietnam's Fallen - Indiana @RestoreHsVT]

Night on the patio 🇺🇸

[Honoring Vietnam's Fallen - Indiana @RestoreHsVT]

He is not forgotten. 🇺🇸

[Jake’sGoldStarMom @HeidiJeanLK]

PFC Jacob H Wykstra
KIA May 28th 2014
Maruf Afghanistan
Please help me make sure he’s not forgotten ♥️🇺🇸
12 years ago today we said our final goodbye and put our boy in the ground. I feel alone in this memory, because as others move on with their lives, parents do not. What we lost was an actual part of ourselves that we cannot get back in this life, so we wait. We wait until we can become whole again in the next life and pray we’re good enough to get there. ♥️

[Honoring Vietnam's Fallen - Indiana @RestoreHsVT]

Dwight Basey
Visited June 2026
Resprayed marker with D/2
Still looking good 🇺🇸

[Honoring Vietnam's Fallen - Indiana @RestoreHsVT]

SP4 Dwight Leroy Basey was killed in Vietnam on November 19, 1966.

He is buried at Brookside Cemetery in Lapel, IN Section 11.

Headstone restored Sept 4th thru 26th.

1/n

[Honoring Vietnam's Fallen - Indiana @RestoreHsVT]

James Moore
Visited June 2026
Resprayed marker
Still looking good 🇺🇸

[Honoring Vietnam's Fallen - Indiana @RestoreHsVT]

SP4 James Lynn Moore from Pendleton, IN died in Vietnam on Aug 5, 1968.

Buried at Grove Lawn Cemetery in Pendleton, GPS (40.011119, -85.742669).

Headstone cleaned May 1 thru June 24, 2023. Lots of work.

Regular Army, 21 years old.

RIP James, thanks for your sacrifice.

[Remember All The Fallen @KoreyG80]

Jonathan is at rest in
Saint Marys Catholic Cemetery
Union City, Indiana 🇺🇸🦅

[Honoring Vietnam's Fallen - Indiana @RestoreHsVT]

Just brutal 🇺🇸

[Echoes of War @EchoesofWarYT]

On the night of June 2, 1864, a Union officer walked through camp and noticed something strange. Thousands of soldiers were quietly sewing.

They were stitching scraps of paper with their names and home addresses into their coats. No dog tags existed yet. These men had seen Lee's trenches across the field, and they wanted their bodies sent home with a name.

They were writing their own toe tags. That happened 162 years ago today, at a Virginia crossroads called Cold Harbor.

At 4:30 the next morning, Grant sent three corps, tens of thousands of men, straight at seven miles of Confederate earthworks. Lee's veterans had spent days perfecting interlocking fields of fire. One Confederate later said it wasn't war, it was murder.

The result was the most lopsided hour of the entire war. Thousands of Union soldiers fell in the opening minutes. Some regiments lost more men in that charge than in the rest of their existence combined. Confederate losses were a fraction of that.

After the battle, a burial party found a diary on the body of a Union soldier. The final entry, written in advance:

"June 3. Cold Harbor. I was killed."

It gets darker. For four days, Grant and Lee exchanged stiff letters arguing over the formalities of a truce while thousands of wounded men lay screaming between the lines. By the time stretcher bearers finally went out on June 7, nearly all of them had died of their wounds or thirst.

Grant went on to take Richmond, win the war, and serve two terms as President. He stared down disasters his whole career and never apologized for any of them.

Except one. Twenty years later, dying of throat cancer and racing to finish his memoirs so his family wouldn't be left broke, he stopped to write this:

"I have always regretted that the last assault at Cold Harbor was ever made. No advantage whatever was gained to compensate for the heavy loss we sustained."

The man won everything. And the thing he carried to his grave was one hour on a June morning, and a field full of men who had already written their names into their coats.

[Honoring Vietnam's Fallen - Indiana @RestoreHsVT]

@nascarman_rr Every year someone (not me) decorates his marker.

[Honoring Vietnam's Fallen - Indiana @RestoreHsVT]

Ray Harroun at Anderson Memorial Park Cemetery photo taken Memorial Day 2026. 🇺🇸

@IMS

[Remember All The Fallen @KoreyG80]

United States Marine Corps
Lance Corporal Michael Terry Latham killed in action
Quang Tri Province, South Vietnam. Michael was 20 years old from Fort Wayne, Indiana. Machine Gunner
Delta Company, 1st BN, 3rd Marines,
3rd MARDIV, III MAF. Remember Mike today. American Hero 🇺🇸

[Honoring Vietnam's Fallen - Indiana @RestoreHsVT]

@shsfan475 Well not where I thought he was. Doc Markham (Vietnam KIA, circled in yellow) is close by and been to him many times.

Would not have had occasion to visit Melvin (but I will).

[Honoring Vietnam's Fallen - Indiana @RestoreHsVT]

Memorial Day 2026
Anderson Memorial Park Cemetery
Anderson, IN
🇺🇸

[Honoring Vietnam's Fallen - Indiana @RestoreHsVT]

@shsfan475 Very nice.

I swear I have walked by his marker as it caught my eye.

[Honoring Vietnam's Fallen - Indiana @RestoreHsVT]

@KoreyG80 Not sure who does it, have seen in previous years but not all.

This is just at Anderson Memorial Park.

[Honoring Vietnam's Fallen - Indiana @RestoreHsVT]

All 17 of the Madison county Vietnam KIA have something similar at their markers today. I didn’t do this.

They are remembered today. 🇺🇸

[Honoring Vietnam's Fallen - Indiana @RestoreHsVT]

@SkankStallone @44MagnumBlue1 Noblesville VFW had a short ceremony and 21 gun salute today. 🇺🇸

[Honoring Vietnam's Fallen - Indiana @RestoreHsVT]

Memorial Day 2026
Crownland Cemetery
Noblesville, IN
🇺🇸

[Honoring Vietnam's Fallen - Indiana @RestoreHsVT]

Ray Harroun at Anderson Memorial Park Cemetery photo taken Memorial Day 2026. 🇺🇸

@IMS