Dressed in a gray shirt with a large eagle stamped on the front, Gilbert Ibarra arrived in a small park in the city of Joshua Tree on Monday morning, thinking about the friends who lost at the end of the Vietnam War in 1975.
A former Marine, Ibarra said her unit participated in the Mayaguez incident that turned out that two of her friends stayed on an island near the coast of Cambodia, where they were probably killed by the Khmer Rouge.
“They were 19 years old,” said Ibarra, his eyes hidden behind the dark sunglasses in this warm morning of the Fallen Day. “I am here to remember my friends. That is the part that I have in my heart.”
Ibarra was among the 75 people who met Monday for an hour of the Fallen Day Service in the Joshua Tree Memorial Park, a small cemetery in the city of high desert. Debbie and Ron Waggoner, their neighbors of the nearby community of the Yucca Valley, sat next to them.
“We have had a busy weekend, but we think today should be reserved for this,” said Debbie. “We do not want to forget the people who paid for our freedom.”
The Fallen Day events in Joshua Tree Memorial Park included a gaiter, speakers, a color guard and a dove.
(Deborah Netburn / Los Angeles Times)
For many Americans, the day of the fallen marks the first day of summer: the beginning of the beach days and barbecues in the backyard. But in southern California and throughout the country, even in the National Cemetery of Los Angeles, near UCLA, people gathered to honor men and women who died in service to the nation.
“We are all here, witnessing the silent cost of war,” said Russell Martin, a chaplain and commander in the Navy that gave the invocation at the Fallen Day event in Joshua Tree. “This day is not just one day in the calendar. It is a sacred pause to remember those who died at the service of the idea that it is worth defending freedom.”
Located about 20 miles west of the Air Ground Combat Center of the Marines Corps, many attending the event Joshua Tree Memorial Park had served in the army. To Bob Hoyt, who wore a leather driver and yellow braces that seemed to measure adhesive tape, served in the Marina from 1966 to 1970. He lived among the white folding chairs, distributing patriotic refrigerator magnets that he himself did.
“I promoted myself to the captain and now my name is Captain America,” he said. “The more aging, the more I love this country, and I try to promote that love as I can.”
In the first row, Anne Lear, who served for a year in Afghanistan and was recently appointed captain of the local chapter of the veterans of the foreign wars, sat with her friend Debbie Johnson, captain of the local chapter of the American Legion. Both organizations aim to help veterans with what they may need, from helping people in their homes to pay an ambulance to transport a former member of the hospital service.
“You are in the presence of a serious power of women here,” said Johnson.
The service, which presented bagpipe music, a color guard and the placement of crowns, concluded after about an hour with the launch of a dozen white pigeons of a woven basket.
The birds flew as a group, surrounding the shadow canopy and the modest improvised podium, the American flag at half -mast, breaking furiously in the wind.
The veterans of the Korean and Vietnam War greet during the opening procedures at the annual ceremony of the Fallen Day in the National Cemetery of Los Angeles.
(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)
