WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — The Hartford Monument Committee will unveil a new monument honoring those who served in conflicts after World War II at Veterans Park on Memorial Day.
The dedication ceremony — which is scheduled to take place at 10 a.m. in the park on Railroad Row — comes two years after the volunteer group completed a monument honoring the town’s World War I and World War II veterans.
The new monument includes the names of 295 Hartford residents who served in the Korean War, 450 who served in the Vietnam War and 108 who served in conflicts — including the Gulf War and post 9/11 wars — from 1975 to 2025, committee member Mary Kay Brown said.
The names include people who enlisted in the military while living in Hartford, or who made Hartford their home for more than 30 years after leaving the service. The lists include people who served abroad and those who completed their service stateside.
“Anybody who signed up for the military even if they didn’t leave the states, they had signed on that line,” Brown said. ”Anybody who signs on that line will go where they are needed.”
The committee chose to put everyone that served after Vietnam into one category because there were many named conflicts between 1975 and 2025, but not many Hartford people served in each, Brown said.
The Hartford Monument Committee formed in early 2020 with a goal of reviving the town’s World War I and World War II monuments, both of which had been destroyed. The group raised more than $80,000 to put toward the erection and upkeep of a new monument, which combined veterans who served in both world wars.
After the dedication ceremony in 2024, the volunteers decided to turn their attention to funding a monument honoring veterans who served in later eras. The goal was to install one that looked similar to the World War I and II monument, which is around 8-feet tall and features plaques listing names on both sides.
They launched a fundraising campaign and ultimately raised around $70,000, which included contributions from the Jack and Dorothy Byrne Foundation, the Hartford Historical Society, Upper Valley businesses and people who purchased so-called “honor bricks” to acknowledge their loved ones, which will surround the monument, Brown said.
The biggest challenge was finding the names of who should be on the monument, which sits about 40-feet away from the World War I and II marker, Brown said. Volunteers were able to work off photographs of the former since-destroyed World War I and II monuments in Hartford to find the names of veterans for the one installed in 2024. That wasn’t the case for the new one.
“There was no list. There were no formal numbers,” Brown said, adding that military records were harder to come by. “There was nothing to refer to so we were starting from scratch.”
Volunteer Linda Miller took the lead in researching names and worked with Vermont’s Office of Veterans Affairs, looking through old Hartford High School yearbooks and poring over records on newspapers.com, among other sources. The committee also solicited help from the community through the Hartford Alumni Association and other organizations.
Despite those efforts, “…we know that the list is incomplete,” Brown said, adding that after the committee finalized the list of names so that the monument could be built they learned of two or three people who should have been included on it.
With that in mind, there is language at the bottom on one of the plaques that reads: “This memorial honors all who served after World War II, in conflict or in peace. Though records may never be complete, their service and sacrifice will never be forgotten.”
