Commemorative brick program brings honor to fallen veterans

Veterans Memorial Park in Lake Charles encourages visitors to remember our fallen heroes and even offers veteran’s families to lay an engraved brick in their honor. 

Veterans Memorial Park on Lakeshore Drive in Lake Charles, Louisiana was built in 1968 and has undergone many changes since then. But one thing remains constant, the honoring of our veterans for both families and surviving veterans. 

“We can come out sit on the bench and think about it, think about those buddies we lost, think about those friends,” said Jim Jackson, veteran. “One thing about the military is the camaraderie, you never forget those.”

Veterans Memorial Park features engraved bricks representing men and women who have served since WWI, arranged by conflict, and each brick is catalogued and mapped so that visitors can easily find the specific brick they are looking for. 

“You never forget those you lost, you always remember them, you always pray for them and then you come here and you celebrate them,” continued Jackson to KPLC.

“This to me, this is a place where veterans can come and kind of relate because we have the tank, we got the cannon, the helicopter, then we’re going to have some other stuff here,” said veteran Edward C. Hudson, Sr. “This is a place that you can come and kind of relate with your buddy’s brick.”

“It’s purely beautiful,” said Al Cochran, veteran. “It’s a quiet, solemn place to come out and meditate.”

For more information on the brick program, and how to have your own brick made, call the Lake Charles Civic Center at 337-491-1256.