Don’t miss the ceremony

Barbara Diamond

May 30 is officially Memorial Day, but generally it is observed on

the last Monday in May.

Not this year.

The World War II Memorial in Washington D.C. will be dedicated on

Saturday, and American Legion posts around the country have been

asked to coordinate local ceremonies.

Laguna’s ceremony will be held Saturday at the Veterans Monument

in Heisler Park, beginning at 10:30 a.m., with music provided by

Larry Wohrman. Four World War II veterans will share their

experiences in the deadly war in which 295,000 Americans died in

defense of their country and freedom from tyranny around the world.

Floral offerings will be accepted.

The ceremony will end at noon with the raising of the flag, which

until then is at half-mast in memory of those who made the ultimate

sacrifice.

There will be no pancake breakfast and no Laguna Beach High School

Band concert due to a conflict in scheduling. The Laguna Beach

Community Concert Band will perform at noon, Monday on the

Cobblestones at Main Beach.

For the first time since the early 1960s, retired U.S. Marine Jim

Law won’t be at the local ceremony.

Law and his wife, Jean, will represent Laguna Beach American

Legion Post 222 at the national ceremony.

“This memorial is a tribute, finally, to what has been called the

greatest generation,” Law said. “There are only about 4 million of us

left out of the 16 million that fought in World War II -- and we are

going fast, about 1,200 a day.”

The memorial is not just for the veterans, Law said. It also

honors nurses and doctors in the combat zones or behind the lines,

the Red Cross, the people at home who were rationed, the ones who

worked in war factories and Rosie the Riveter, who proved that a

woman’s place is not necessarily in the kitchen.

“Kids today don’t even know about World War II except that we

dropped the bomb and killed 50,000 Japanese,” Law said. “This will

make the war more real.”

The bronze and granite memorial is set in a plaza between the

Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall.

Entry is through two huge arches at the north and south ends of the

memorial, representing the two theaters of the war.

Each state, territory and the District of Columbia are symbolized

by 17-foot-tall, granite pillars. Four thousand, sculpted gold stars

recall the flags hung in the windows of families that lost a member

in the war.

The Laws will be seated close to the memorial.

“We have priority seating right at the memorial,” Law said. “It

holds 10,000, Other areas hold 45,000.

Law joined the Marines in 1937, almost directly out of high

school. Jobs were scarce and he figured a hitch in the service would

tide him over. He thought he’d travel a bit and see the world.

What he saw was the Solomon Islands, some of the bloodiest

fighting in the Pacific Theater.

By the end of the war, the Marines had become a career and he had

achieved his goal of attending flight school, stationed at El Toro

Marine Air Base.

Law bought a home in Laguna Beach in 1950.

Three months later, he was on a troop ship to Korea.

“Boy, I thought, you are one dumb Marine,” Law said. “But it

turned out OK.”

He hung onto the house and married Jean.

“She is an army brat and understands military life,” Law said.

The two have dedicated recent years to furthering the interests of

less fortunate veterans of all wars.

Jean Law is a past commander of the Laguna’s Legion and Veterans

of Foreign Wars posts. She has served as President of both post’s

auxiliaries. She is currently the secretary/treasurer of the Legion

post and chair of the Poppy Program, which raises funds for veterans

programs. .

The poppy has been the memorial flower since 1921. Each May,

Legion Auxiliary distributes the paper replicas of the blood red

poppies of Flanders Field and asks recipients to wear them throughout

the month, especially on Memorial Day, in memory of deceased veterans

and those listed as missing in action or as prisoners of war.

“We also ask that you remember our living veterans who are in

hospitals or veterans’ homes and our active service men and women:

they are veterans too,” said Jean Law.

Remembering is what Memorial Day is all about.

Some people still call it Decoration Day. Whatever it is called,

it is the day on which flowers are offered in memory of those who

died serving their country.

According to Legion records, the custom began in 1863 Columbus

Miss., when a small group of Southern women were attending

Confederate graves. They noticed that many Union graves were unkempt

and they turned their efforts to weeding and decorating the graves of

their erstwhile enemies with flowers.

It was a show of tenderness that became a symbol of amity after

the Civil War ended.

The first official Memorial Day was observed May 30, 1966 in

Waterloo, N.Y. with speeches, parades and picnics.

Two years later, the Grand Army of the Republic, the first

veterans’ organization, set aside May 30 as Decoration Day, by order

of Gen. John Alexander Logan “for the purpose of decorating the

graves of the American Civil War Dead.”

In 1971, the U.S. congress changed the observance date to the last

Monday in May.

The date may have changed. The name may have changed. The custom

of offering flowers in the memory of the fallen has not changed.

Floral offerings may be brought to the ceremony at Heisler Park.

Donors are asked to call (949) 494-6016 or (949) 494-2065 so their

names or the names of the organization they represent can be

announced. Some of floral arrangement will be displayed later that

day in front of the Veterans Memorial Building on Legion Street and

some will be distributed to hospitals.