Several times a year my husband and I will travel around Pennsylvania to visit military and veteran memorials. It’s our way of paying our respects to past, present and future veterans who fought and/or served our country. We must NEVER forget them and their sacrifices that they made.
Last month on Veterans Day we visited a brand new veterans memorial in Enola Pennsylvania. If you’re unfamiliar with the area…Enola is located in Cumberland County and about a 10 to 14 minute drive from downtown Harrisburg. It’s a suburb on the west shore of the Susquehanna River.
Captain Leon Lock Veterans Memorial is part of Hampden Township Veterans Park and is open to the public. Residents and tourists can visit for FREE from sunrise to sunset, 365 days a year. There is free on-site parking and most of the park is handicap accessible, although those in wheelchairs will need some assistance.
After parking we headed down the paved walking trails to check out all of the memorials and information plaques. The walking trail is lined on both sides with little American flags. The path goes up and down some hills (not steep ones) and is curvy…but is an easy walk…even for me with a replaced hip and knee.
What’s really cool is that it honors all six branches of the military, purple heart recipients and as you walk along the marked path you’ll come across granite memorials that give you information about all of the wars that the United States has been involved in. The Revolutionary War, The Civil War, The Vietnam War, The Korean War, Operation Iraqi Freedom, and so forth. They’re all in order…so you’ll come across the oldest conflict first and at the top of the hill you’ll find the memorial for the most recent one.
Eventually you come to the top of a hill where you’ll find all six branches of the military’s flags, the United States American Flag, MIA/POW flag, etc. There is a section up there for ceremonial burnings of the American Flag and how you go about properly doing that. It’s very important that we all respect our military and our American flag!!! As you can see the “circle” in the above photo has six sections, one for each branch of the military.
After spending some time up at the top we headed back down the way that we came. We took our time to stop and re-read several of the memorials that we had read on our way up. The scenery is beautiful and it was really nice to get out of the city and into some fresh air. As you can see by my photos…we visited during the Fall season, so most of the trees had already dropped their leaves.
We really enjoyed visiting the Captain Leon Lock Veterans Memorial and learning more about all of the different wars & conflicts that the U.S. has been involved in. It was really nice to pay our respects to the veterans and was a great learning experience for us. If you’re ever in the area…we encourage you to go!
This does look like a very nice memorial to visit. I would love to go there and pay my respects.
It seems to be a really serene place. It would be a really nice place to visit and pay respects.
This looks like a great memorial. I wish I lived closer so I could visit it. I try and visit all of them near me. They are so moving.