The ultimate price

The memorial block of granite at City Hall honoring local members of the military fallen in battle will soon bear three more names, all killed in war over the last couple of years.

It won’t happen right on Memorial Day, officials said. But those observing the solemn holiday Monday at Huntington Beach Pier will certainly have them in mind when all the names are read.

“There’s no way I can express how much gratitude I have for these guys who do what they do,” said Councilman Joe Carchio, one of five council members scheduled to speak at the event. “Freedom doesn’t come without a price … and many of them have paid the ultimate price.”

Three people will be added to the memorial: Nathan Windsor, a Marine killed in combat March 11 during a military surge in the Al Anbar province of Iraq, who spent much of his childhood in Huntington Beach; Marcus Glimpse, a Marine killed in April 2006 by an improvised bomb at a roadside checkpoint in the same province, known as the “Sunni Triangle;” and William C. James, a Huntington Beach High School graduate and Marine rifleman killed in action during heavy fighting in that region in November 2004.

The city’s official observance of the day is from 11 a.m. to noon at the pier, said city spokeswoman Laurie Payne. American Legion Post 133, based out of Huntington Beach, is coordinating it along with Veterans of Foreign Wars and Jewish War Veterans.

There will be no flag raising before the ceremony, said Dennis Bauer, an adjutant with the American Legion and coordinator of the event.

Instead, the flag will be lowered to half staff to “salute those who have given their lives to their country,” he said.

The hour will also include a speech by Col. Jane Anderholt, deputy commander of the Joint Forces Training Base in Los Alamitos, as well as speeches by council members and veterans, music by the Huntington Beach High School band and a bagpipe player, he added. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher and Assemblyman Jim Silva have also promised to attend.

Too many people see Memorial Day as a three-day weekend and not a time to remember people’s sacrifices, said Ned Metsch, commander of American Legion Post 133 in Huntington Beach. But he can’t entirely blame them, because he doesn’t think school children are taught enough about it.

“I really don’t think they understand the true meaning of Memorial Day,” he said. “They don’t realize what it stands for. It happened when we were kids in high school, too. I thought, ‘Oh good, we get a day off!’”

Many don’t pay much attention to the important holiday, Metsch said. Still, a growing awareness of sacrifice in the Iraq war might be changing that, he said.

“Now we’re getting casualties, and some of our best people are being shot down,” he said. “In this particular war, the people in our military are being given the respect they deserve.”