"Answer Man: Signs honoring veterans are a mystery
Q. While attending a recent Monday night concert on the Belleville Public Square, I noticed an array of small signs or plaques lined up against one of the fences outside the St. Clair County Building. They're mostly yellow and red and seem to memorialize veterans from the Vietnam era. Some have the black-and-white POW-MIA symbol on them. Who is responsible for them and what are they doing there?
-- F.P. of Belleville
A. I know I'm going to give Answer Men everywhere a black eye by saying your guess is as good as mine. But after calling a variety of likely suspects, I figured I would try that tact in hopes of flushing out the parties responsible.
Now, you would think the county would have had to give permission for such a display on its property. But they were as much in the dark about this mystery as everyone else I contacted.
"That's a good question," said Kurt Daesch, superintendent of the Veterans Assistance Commission, who sees the display on daily as he makes his way to the county building.
"A friend of mine ... said, 'Well, do you know who did it?' And, I said, 'Nope.' So, I started trying to uncover that stone, and just nobody seems to know."
Daesch is a past American Legion commander, but that group knows nothing about it. Neither does Chuck Oelrich with the Veterans of Foreign Wars or Joan Luna, who works with a Scott Air Force Base POW-MIA group.
As far as Daesch knows, they just popped up out of nowhere a couple of years ago. They're even occasionally taken down before and carefully put back up after downtown festivals. Daesch finds many people aren't even aware of their presence, so apparently they've found a home.
"Well, I posed that question to the Public Building Commission people, and they said, well, nobody wanted to be a bad guy," said Daesch when asked why the county might not object to such an unauthorized display that has continued for months.
"Somebody has this on their agenda that they just don't want anybody to forget them. So, it doesn't bother me. It's one of the more inocuous tributes to not forget those who gave so much."
Of course, I'd love to give the appropriate people credit if they'd call or write to clear up this riddle."