A DAY OF HONOR
Mathis Winkler
She came to honor America’s heroes. But one of them was especially on
Adrienne Reel’s mind as she joined hundreds for the American Legion
Newport Harbor Post 291’s Memorial Day service Monday. Reel’s husband,
Paul, a World War II veteran, who had served in the U.S. Navy, had just
died May 7.
“It’s a tribute to him and to all the veterans,” Reel said, adding
that her husband had been buried near the Navy memorial at Pacific View
Memorial Park where the service took place. “It’s just a nice place to
come on Memorial Day.”
As about 300 people, ranging in age from toddlers to those who fought
in wars many decades ago, took their seats or sat on the lawn in front of
the park’s war memorial, the post’s commander asked his audience to
remember the fallen soldiers as individuals.
“Picture one person who died,” said Dennis Lahey, his voice frequently
overcome with emotion. “Picture them how they might have looked had they
lived -- probably like the old gray-haired guys you see up here . . .
their legacy is freedom. Where we fought and won, there now exists
freedom. That is a legacy those who perished bought with their lives.”
While the country is at peace right now, Lahey encouraged everyone to
take up the struggle for freedom in their personal lives.
People should stand up against religious prejudice, racial
discrimination, free speech infringement and government crackdowns on
individual rights, he said.
“You might feel uncomfortable,” he said. “It will take courage for you
to stand up for freedom. You are on the battlefield of freedom today.”
After the ceremony, which included a performance of military songs by
a group of 28 children dressed as Marines, sailors and soldiers, some
said they were glad people cared to remember.
“Sometimes it hurts not to see people come out,” said Karl Romahn, who
served in the U.S. Navy during the Korean War and wore his white uniform
for the ceremony. “It’s good to see people here.”
Dressed in red, white and blue, Balboa resident Joanne Walker said she
always attends Memorial Day services.
“It’s just a very moving experience,” she said. “I have lost many
people in the war.”
While 5-year-old Nicolas Guido and his sister Alina, 6, couldn’t
remember what the ceremony had been about, they said they’d liked the
21-gun salute and the release of white doves respectively.
But Matthew Thomson, 8, said he had come to visit the grave of his
great-grandmother, Evelyn Hall Watkins and “celebrate . . . everybody
else that died in the war and thank them for what they did.”
Watkins, who served in the Navy’s Women Accepted for Volunteer
Emergency Service during World War II, died last December.
“She was nice,” Thomson said. “She had a nice car. She had a nice
husband. She had a nice everything. And I’m never going to forget her.”
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