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.”