Honoring the fallen
Memorial Day observance pays tribute to those who sacrificed all for our freedoms
Ron Roberts, a Vietnam War veteran, recalls how his friend, Daniel Fernandez of Los Lunas, threw himself on a grenade to save his fellow soldiers.
“He was a wonderful kid, and we rodeoed together,” Roberts said. “War breaks things. It kills people. And it makes you hate the politicians who put you there.”
Fernandez was just 22 when he died in Vietnam. He would have been 73 this year.
It was his death and that of hundreds of thousands of others that was the focus of Monday morning’s Memorial Day ceremony at the New Mexico Veterans Memorial. The observance drew nearly 700 people, including numerous government officials and political candidates. Wreaths were saluted. Taps was trumpeted. Bagpipes escorted the presentation of colors.
And flags were waved.
Col. Richard Gibbs, 377th Air Base Wing and installation commander at Kirtland Air Force Base, told the crowd he recalled once finding a card among his father’s possessions.
Handwritten on it was a list of names, many of them with a line drawn through.
The few names that remained unmarked were the few men who survived that combat. Those drawn through were the men who had died in the “fight for right and for freedom,” Gibbs said.
Memorial Day is for remembering them and their sacrifice, he said.
But in remembering the dead, it is important to not forget the living, Mayor Tim Keller said in his remarks.
“The best way to honor them is to take care of those still with us,” he said.
That includes coordinating more social services and economic opportunities for veterans, he said.
For the Veterans for Peace, a group of anti-war veterans, that care includes learning lessons to prevent more deaths and more suffering.
“Memorial Day is for remembering. And the ultimate goal of Memorial Day should be to learn from that (remembering),” said veteran Terry Riley of Albuquerque.
For veteran Mike Long, who is traveling the country to bring awareness to veteran suicide and posttraumatic stress disorder, taking care of veterans still with us means taking seriously the number committing suicide.
A federal study in 2012 found that between 18-22 veterans a day commit suicide.
Long, who traveled to Albuquerque from Texas, said that number is likely even higher than 22 if one takes into account deaths from alcohol/drug overdose and dangerous behavior.
“I try to be a voice for those lost souls,” he said.