'It's good to be here together'
Sep. 15—There is no judgement in "The Healing Field," a piece of ground along Indiana 26 on the county's southeast side, home every September to the All Veterans Reunion put on by the Howard County Vietnam Veterans Organization (HCVVO).
Whether you served stateside or overseas, in war or during peace, everyone is welcome there.
Underneath the giant American flag near the back of the property, with the sound of a Huey helicopter slicing through the sky above it, is the peaceful Memorial Garden and its array of bricks, each signifying a sibling, a child, a parent, a friend or a comrade.
And if you take the time to wander through the individual campsites, among the RVs that come from as far away as Arizona and Texas, that's when you also start to see just how important the All Veterans Reunion is to those who attend.
"We all served together, these guys right here," Muncie resident James "Dinky" Dalton told the Tribune on Friday afternoon, putting an arm up to point to the half dozen men sitting around him.
Most of the men served together in the U.S. Army's 198th Light Infantry Brigade during Vietnam, Dalton noted, a 55-year friendship assisted by opportunities to come back together, such as the annual reunion.
"We all look forward to it every year," he said. "We can't wait to get here and do this. We don't talk about the war a lot (when at the reunion). We're just kind of everyday guys now. Everybody gets along pretty well. We have a lot of people that we try to get to come, and then they finally come, and they say, 'If I knew it was like this, I'd have come a long time ago.'"
Rick Hubner is from New York, and he makes the trip to Howard County every year for the reunion.
"The first thing that comes to mind that keeps you coming is there gets to be fewer and fewer of us," he said. "And on the other hand, every time you come, you learn something that you didn't know about somebody even though we went through the same experience a long time ago. That connects us all, and that doesn't ever go away.
"Nobody knows a Vietnam veteran better than a Vietnam veteran," Hubner added.
Doug Lay, who came from Ohio, agreed with Hubner.
"Rick and I are a little bit different than these other guys," he said. "We were artillery attached to the infantry. So we worked with them, lived with them, sweated with them and bled with them. So it's good to see these guys. Our numbers are diminishing, and it's good to be here together."
The conversation then turned to the Memorial Garden located just a few feet away from where the group had set up camp.
"We placed a brick today to Rick's and my radio operator," Lay said. "He lives in Michigan. Nobody, most of the other guys in the artillery unit, couldn't really venture there or know what happened to him. But they come here, and he's in their hearts. That's what brings you back to this place, those men and women whose bricks are out there."
The name of Dalton's son is etched on one of those bricks too.
"You go over there and say, 'Dang, look how many bricks there are," Dalton said. "And maybe that's part of why we come. We come to drink beer and raise the flag and reminisce about them (those who have passed away)."
Because the All Veterans Reunion is more than just about a week of music and campfires, the group said.
It's also about shared experience.
"We've always said that you need to come at least once," Michigan's Max Milliman said. "If you come back, wonderful. If not, then you at least know what you're missing and can still come back another time."
Lay nodded his head in agreement.
"If you've never been out here, I think what you're missing is history," he said. "It's history that we have and everybody else that's served in the military from that era has too. It's not in a book or a movie or something like that. It's living history."
