» No ceremony, but no shortage of mourners at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery.
Despite the pandemic, many visit Fort Sam cemetery on Memorial Day
Jeremy Lara, Robert Campos and Arturo Rocha sat in front of a group of headstones, three of them bearing the names of comrades who had fallen in Iraq, and sipped beer.
They were mortarmen in Anbar province in 2004-05, when the Sunni insurgency exploded in much of Iraq, especially in the desert west of Baghdad, leaving the Marines who fought bitter battles there with memories they’ll never forget.
They carried parts of the mortar, which all told came to around 80 pounds not counting the two, 8-pound shells given to each man. All three can easily recall the heaviest part of the weapon — the 5-foot-long barrel — which they shouldered.
A Marine carries the 52-pound barrel over the back of his shoulders until it gets too heavy and passes it over to another man. “Carrying the barrel,” as it was called, was a part of life in combat for years and years, and is still a thing with these men this Memorial Day.
“Some people are stronger and can carry it for longer periods of time. Some people were thinner with less muscle density and couldn’t carry that barrel for so long,” said 40-year-old Lara, of San Antonio. “It doesn’t mean that they’re any less of a person, it’s just physically, they couldn’t do it.
“It’s the same thing mentally,” he continued. “There are some of us that are mentally stronger than others and sometimes we just need help, and that’s why we come here, just to pass that barrel, help one another get through.”
Lara, Campos and Rocha came to Section 25 of Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery on a cloudy, damp Monday morning. They were armed not with mortar equipment, an M249 SAW, M240B 7.62 mm machine gun and a heavy load of ammo but beer packed in an ice chest. Coming to this section of Fort Sam, an older part of the cemetery, is a Memorial Day ritual, a time to think back and carry the barrel.
They opened bottles of Dos Equis and cans of Coors Light,
and placed one of each against headstones of Lance Cpl. Matthew Wayne Holloway, Cpl. Joseph E. Fite and Cpl. Jacob H. Neal, and then cracked open beers of their own. Only hours removed from thunderstorms that roared across the San Antonio area, they downed the chilled beers quickly.
As they talked, the men were surrounded by a growing throng that descended upon the cemetery. Scores of people gathered around headstones all around them as a long line of cars moving bumper to bumper clogged San Antonio Street, the main east-west road through the cemetery. At one point, a B-25 bomber flew over the cemetery along with other vintage planes. In the distance, a bugler sounded taps.
Lara, Campos and Rocha stood up, as did everyone else at the cemetery.
Those at Fort Sam mourned weeks, months and even years after the passing of their loved ones and friends, but on Memorial Day the sting of sadness ran a little deeper as they grieved. If some felt more alone than usual, it might have been because this year there was no somber ceremony at Fort Sam’s assembly area. The event was canceled this year because of the pandemic, but waves of people came here anyway.
For Griselda Garcia and her sister, Minnie Delgado, the drive from Austin through the rain to see their father, who died at 92, is a part of tradition.
They come out on the Fourth of July and his birthday as well, but “today is such an honor for him and everybody else that died,” Garcia said, choking up, “everyone else that fought for our freedom, we’ve come to honor all of them … because he would have done the same.”
Stories of fallen comrades
Now out of the Marine Corps with civilian jobs and home lives, Lara and Rocha are married, while Campos has a girlfriend. They’ve settled down.
Lara works as an operations manager for a Dallas-based landscaping company and Campos, 38, is employed by a firm that does residential and commercial lawn service, including at Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston. Rocha, 40, is a U.S. Border Patrol agent.
Years removed from the war, they carry a few numbers in their heads. There’s the 10 Alpha, Charlie, Bravo and Weapons Company reservists killed in action from the 4th Marine Division’s 1st Battalion, 23rd Marines. And there are the 27 Purple Hearts given in that tour, which ran from August 2004 to March 27, 2005.
One Marine, a lance corporal, got three of them and lives in Houston.
The 175 Marines they served with were an all-American affair, coming from across the country. That meant some of them never knew each other. Alpha Company, a headquarters unit, was from Houston, Bravo Company was from Baton Rouge, La., and Weapons Company was from Austin. Marines from the regiment came from California but had engineers out of Grand Rapids, Mich.
Holloway, 21, of Fulton was in Charlie Company, an outfit that included infantrymen from Corpus Christi, Harlingen, McAllen and the Rio Grande Valley, all the way to Brownsville. As Lara and Rocha were being interviewed in Al Asad, a base in Anbar, about the death of Fite, 23, of Round Rock, tragedy struck again.
Holloway and Lance Cpl. Juan Rodrigo Rodriguez, 23, of Laredo were killed when a roadside bomb split their truck in half in the town of Hit, north of Ramadi.
“You guys did the medevac,” Lara told Campos.
“I didn’t really know it was him until he told me,” Campos replied, pointing toward Lara.
A call went out, and Campos’ mobile assault platoon quick reaction force rushed to the scene.
“I had no idea who it was,” Campos continued. “It wasn’t until years later when I saw the headstone and I was here with Lara that he told me, ‘You remember him?,’ and I was like, ‘Nope.’ He said, ‘You did his medevac,’ and I said, ‘What?’ And then he told me the story.”
When Campos first came to the cemetery, it was just to see Fite, a Javelin anti-tank weapons specialist who is described as the nice, quiet guy who read a lot of books, was always there and smiled a lot. He kept a journal.
Holloway, who is remembered as easygoing and very fit, and Neal, a martial arts specialist eager to moved up the enlisted ranks, rest nearby.
Neal was anxious to get into the fight but came to the Weapons Company after its 2004-05 tour of Iraq. He went with Lara, Campos and Rocha to Morocco, where they did a humanitarian mission, and transferred to another unit that was headed to Iraq. Three months into his tour, Neal, 23, of San Marcos, was killed by an IED.
“Corporal Neal, I was part of his seven-gun salute here at Fort Sam,” said Lara, who served at 11 Marine burials at the cemetery from 200510.
Like so many warriors since 9/11, they carry a lot of weight.
“I cope with it with these guys,” said Lara, originally from Pecos. “We’re very tight-knit. Being a reserve unit, we’re really lucky because a lot of the Marines we served with are here in San Antonio.
“There’s probably a group of seven of us that are really, really close in San Antonio, and we get together throughout the year. We hunt together, we fish together,” he added.
‘A big part of our lives’
Sometimes, they come here and talk with Holloway, Fite and Neal. Campos will stop and have his lunch here, hanging out with his friends.
He’ll also come by on Jan. 9, 2005 — Fite’s “kill day.”
“I have a set of dominoes that Fite and I were supposed to play when he was supposed to come back from that mission that he died on,” Campos said. “Every now and then we’ll play, but those are sitting on a mantel somewhere. They’re going to get buried with me when I pass.”
Rocha comes not only to see his buddies, but also has a daughter who is buried here.
“It feels good to come out here and just spend time with them,” he said. “Obviously they’re a big part of our lives.”