Welcome Home Hotel Company
These are hallowed grounds. Please respect what this park and especially this memorial means to your freedom. The overall memorial celebrates all who have served their country, state or city. Within the memorial is a specific memorial to a company of United Stages Marines, specifically those members who gave their lives over several years the Marine company spent in Vietnam. One of those fallen Marines was a local, well respected student, athlete, and citizen, Thomas H. Baker.
Originally, the memorial to Hotel Company was at the local Chevrolet dealer. A former owner of the dealership was a highschool friend of Tom. When Mr. Bookwalter took ownership, he followed through with a plan to remember his fallen friend and all of his fallen fellow Marines from Hotel Company. With Mr. Bookwalter's push, the City of Stanton adopted Hotel Company and officially declared Stanton as Hotel Company's home. You may have noticed that on the city limit signs.
Surviving members of Hotel Company who served in Vietnam from 1966-1970 have come to Stanton many times to celebrate Memorial Day, and to visit their fallen brother.
In June, 2025, The memorial to Hotel Company was moved to its current site and placed front and center in the Veterans Memorial. The dealership service waiting room still contains a very personal memorial to Tom and a couple of his closest friends.
To claim this find, please send a gc message or an email with the answers to these questions:
- What Battalion was Hotel Company part of?
- What Regiment was Hotel Company part of?
- What Marine Division was Hotel Company part of?
- What rank was Tom when he was killed in battle? This is on his brick in front of the stone memorial. If you can't find the stone, just answer "pass".
- What was the Tom's middle name? Tom's is the fourth name listed on the stone.
A photo of you at the memorial would be appreciated but please do not post a photo of the answers. Your log will be deleted if you do, or if you provide the answers in your log.
Feel free to respectfully ring the bell that hangs above a note that Hotel Company left to honor Navy Corpsman.
Virtual Rewards 2.0 - 2019/2020
This Virtual Cache is part of a limited release of Virtuals created between June 4, 2019 and June 4, 2020. Only 4,000 cache owners were given the opportunity to hide a Virtual Cache. Learn more about Virtual Rewards 2.0 on the Geocaching Blog.