Commissioners approve "Chair of Honor" for POW/MIA veterans in Courthouse

David Brewer

Among the many topics discussed at the June 2 commissioners meeting, a veteran by the name of David Brewer spoke to the commissioners about adding a Chair of Honor in the Salem Courthouse. This chair would be installed in honor of POW and MIA soldiers that never made it home.

“My name is David Brewer. I'm a member of the board of directors of Rolling Thunder at Indiana, Chapter One. We're one of 44 chapters of a national organization, Rolling Thunder. First, so that you know a little bit about us, I'd like to read our mission statement. The major function of Rolling Thunder Incorporated is to publicize POW and MIA issues. To educate the public that many American Prisoners of War were left behind after all previous wars, and to help correct the past and protect the future veterans from being left behind should they become prisoners of war or missing in action. We are committed to helping American veterans from all wars. Rolling Thunder Incorporated as a non-profit organization, and everyone donates his or her time because they believe in the POW Mia issue.”

“The reason I'm here this morning is to propose that we place a Chair of Honor in our Courthouse,” he continued. “The Chair of Honor is an empty chair with cordons around it, with flags behind it, and a bronze plaque stating that it's there to commemorate the over 80,000 service members that went to war and their remains have never come home. It's also for the families of all those 82,000 service members that never had closure or been able to have a proper funeral.”

“Our Courthouse here would join some pretty notable places in having a Chair of Honor,” added Brewer. “There is one in the Emancipation Hall of our U.S. Capitol. Here in Indiana, we have one in the State House. We have one at all of the major sporting events facilities in Indianapolis: Lucas Oil, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, etc. I did have a meeting earlier with Kyra Stephenson. John Quatroke and Andy Bush came to the meeting, and I think we have full support of this from our veterans community. Rolling Thunder is totally prepared to provide this chair at no cost to the county. We just need a place to put it in our Courthouse. My reason for talking to you today is just to get your approval for us to go forward with planning and development of placing one of these chairs in our Courthouse. We also are considering the possibility of a marble bench out with the Veterans Memorial on the southeast corner of our square.”

Commissioner Todd Ewen said, “It would be an honor for us to allow you to put the chair inside.”

He also stated that he will make a motion to allow the chair, as well as the marble bench if they decide to install it at a later date. The motion passed unanimously.

Examples of Chairs of Honor:

“There will probably be 2 to 3 months of planning to get this together,” said Brewer. “We typically speak to the people involved in the county or the facility. Some of those are pilot chairs that have been provided. There's a race car chair out at the 500 track. We asked for the facility to provide a chair. So if there's one around here somewhere that may have some kind of significance, we could then have it refurbished, recovered, all of the work. These projects typically cost us about $3,500. If the county would like to make a donation toward that, we would accept that. But we do have some other people here in the county that are willing to make some donations to help with the cost of this. Our donations have been down quite a bit the last couple of years, and our bank account is getting smaller every year. I will begin having meetings with the memorials committee, and we'll start the planning process.”

Then Commissioner Ewen said, “That being said, I would also like to make a motion to allow the county to donate the amount of the chair. Words can't say– no one can imagine what some of these veterans and families had to go through to protect our freedom. I think it would be just a very small token. A gesture of ours. It's never enough, and I'd like to make a motion to help fund them with the chair.”

The motion passed unanimously, and the plans for a Chair of Honor in the Courthouse are underway.