Indiana Spirit Quest #100: Band of Brothers Mystery Cache

"The war will still be here tomorrow." --Roxanne in Apocalypse Now

The Indiana Spirit Quest series of geocaches will take you to a number of historic cemeteries built by Hoosier Pioneers. In just over a year, the quest has grown to over a hundred seventy caches hidden in twenty Indiana counties, and the hiders have grown to five cacher teams, four of which are comprised of A Man and His Dog... PRAIRIEPARTNERS has set a record for one-day ISQ finds on 10-16-2004 at 55! 225 cacher teams have logged over 2,250 finds.

Pioneer Cemetery (Photo by LEAD DOG)

Welcome to South Whitley Cemetery, Cleveland Twp., Whitley County. The cemetery is a fusion of two family plots from the 1840's, those of the Collins and Parretts. There are over 6,000 souls laid to rest here, and many are civil war vets. But we are going to concentrate on an 1812 Vet and three fallen comrades who gave their lives in South East Asia.

JOHN COLLINS
WAR OF 1812 VET
N41° 04.7916 W85° 37.9967

Vietnam War Veterans have long been called the “Band of Brothers”. The term originally comes from The Bonnie Blue Flag , the marching anthem of the losing cause of the Confederacy:

“ We are a band of brothers, and native to the soil, Fighting for our Liberty, with treasure, blood and toil;
And when Our rights were threaten'd, the cry rose near and far,
Hurrah for the Bonnie Blue Flag, that bears a Single Star!”

Beallsville, Ohio (pop. 475) gained unwanted national notoriety between 1966 and 1971 by having suffered the largest per-capita loss of life in the Vietnam War. Six young men lost their lives in the war, a terrible and profound loss for this small town.

This cache is dedicated to three fallen brothers from an Indiana small town, South Whitley. Two Soldiers and a Marine gave their all in the fight against Communism, and have found their final resting place here:

This quest will require you to pay your respects to these three fallen heroes, as well as a vet from the War of 1812. Clues to the location of the cache will be found on the markers of the graves of these brothers.

The cache is located at:

A=Jane Holman Collins' month of death minus 5
B=Jane's age in years minus 58
C=The last digit in Cpl. Wilfong's birth year
D=Sgt. Smith's month of death plus one
E= Last digit of year of death of Cpl. Nye

The three Nam servicemen are close together, so start your quest there.

The cache container was an orange waterproof match safe. Now it's a small rubbermaid container. BYOP. Park with Extreme care.If you find a fallen US flag, please stick it back in the ground. As always, please be respectful, and cache in, trash out.

DON'T BE FOOLED BY CRASS IMITATIONS!! None genuine without this official SixDogTeam seal. Digital photographs taken by Lead Dog, copyright 2005 by RikSu Outfitters unless otherwise noted.

"Indiana Spirit Quest" is brought to you by the following funny fellows of GEOISQ*: The SixDogTeam, Kodiak Kid, THE SHADOW, Team Shydog and Rupert2. If you are interested in spreading the quest to your neck of the woods AND WOULD LIKE TO JOIN US, email SixDogTeam with caching resume and at least 7 current references.

*Grand Exalted Order of the Indiana Spirit Quest

NIGHT CACHING IS NOT ALLOWED ON ANY ISQ'S!

Cache On!!