Mudsock Quilts of Valor program honors veterans

Jun 24, 2025

Mudsock Quilters Guild Quilts of Valor program members met June 12 at Hamilton East Public Library in Fishers to present quilts to three area U.S. Army veterans: Specialist Jose Sierra III, Sgt. Alan Watts and Specialist Roger Coffel.

The local program is part of the nationwide Quilts of Valor network, which has a goal of gifting every service member in the nation with a quilt of comfort and healing, representing love, care and respect for those who served.

The three veterans honored at the ceremony left their mark in the military before discharge.

Sierra served as a communications specialist from 2012 to 2017, completing multiple field exercises before separating from the Army due to a disability. Coffel volunteered as a combat engineer in 1968 before an honorable discharge in 1971, serving in the Big Red One, the First Infantry Division of the US Army. Watts served from January 1968 to October 1968 and was honorably discharged after serving and maintaining missiles used by artillery forces.

“Everybody has valor when they (serve time),” guild member Ruth Ann Gapen said. “It’s really hard to be pulled away from your family and do stuff you didn’t know about and go places you never heard of. (In Vietnam), nobody wanted to be there.”

Guild members volunteer their time and resources to commemorate and celebrate nominated veterans, helping to honor the more than 400,000 service members nationwide who have been given a quilt.

“We all work really hard,” Gapen said. “It’s all from the heart, because we feel for these guys, and know what they did. Most of us have family members (who served), so all of us have a connection to that and feel strongly for what these guys go through, which is mostly why we do it.”

To nominate a veteran for a quilt and for more information, visit qovf.org.