Solemn ceremonies honor fallen heroes
Red, white and blue Memorial Day events draw Bay Area crowds.
While families around the Bay Area enjoyed hot dogs, sunshine and a day off work Monday thousands also gathered for a solemn reminder of the true meaning of Memorial Day.
The 100th annual Memorial Day ceremony at San Jose’s Oak Hill Memorial Park — where more than 14,000 veterans are buried — drew crowds of men and women decked out in an assortment of military uniforms, and families with children wearing red, white and blue. They stood, hands
firmly over their hearts, for impassioned performances of the National Anthem, God Bless America and Taps, played amid a field of headstones adorned with small American flags.
“We honor and remember our fallen heroes not merely because they fought bravely, but because they sacrificed nobly, recognizing that they fought for something greater than themselves — their families, our freedoms and our collective future as a nation,” San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo told the crowd.
Simultaneous ceremonies kicked off elsewhere around the Bay Area on Monday to honor fallen military service members. There were speakers, a presentation of colors and a salute to the departed at Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland, patriotic music and speakers at Lone Tree Cemetery in Hayward, a ceremony and wreath toss at the USS Hornet Museum in Alameda and an outdoor mass at Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Los Altos.
In San Jose, Amy and David Peck sat near the front of the stage, bravely bearing the sweltering heat of the afternoon, as a way of thanking the country’s military. Amy Peck, 58, of San Jose, said these types of events are especially important in today’s divisive and often antagonistic political climate.
“Today gives me hope,” she said.
Francina Castro, 46, brought her granddaughters — 8-year-old Bella and 4-year-old Mia. After the ceremony, the family clustered around the grave of Joe Castro, Francina Castro’s grandfather, and an Army veteran who died in 1974. Francina Castro’s late father also is a veteran and served in Vietnam, she said, tearing up at the memory of him.
Castro wanted to pass on the importance of the day to her granddaughters.
“So they know what it’s about,” she said, “not just a day off and barbecuing.”
For 92-year-old World War II veteran Rev. Wortham Fears, of Oakland, attending Monday’s events was an honor, but he also was there representing a drker period of the nation’s military history. Fears was one of 20,000 African-American Marines to attend a segregated
boot camp at Montford Point in North Carolina between 1942 and 1949, before the Marines became integrated.
Fears was drafted into the military, but when he showed up for training, he wasn’t welcomed into the service. His sergeant once told him “you are lower than anything at the bottom of the ocean,” Fears said.
“We signed on the dotted line to fight — and die if necessary — for freedoms
we did not have at home,” he said.
Fears played an official role in the ceremony Monday, carrying a wreath of flowers down the aisle.
As the ceremony began, a restored Vietnam War-era Huey helicopter roared over the crowd, drawing cheers and excited shouts of “that’s cool!” and “awesome!” A collection of military tanks and trucks stationed nearby welcomed people of all ages to explore them and pose for
pictures.
The vehicles were a special addition this year in honor of Oak Hill’s 100th Memorial Day celebration. This year also marks several other historic anniversaries, including the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War’s Tet Offensive and the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I.
“This year we felt like we were going to do more,” said Oak Hill General Manager Rob Wallinger.
The vehicles, displayed courtesy of nonprofit the Eagle FIeld Foundation, drew much admiration from 7-year-old Devin Barry of San Jose, who grinned ear-to-ear as he donned a fighter pilot helmet and climbed into the cockpit of an F8U-1 Crusader.
“It was cool!” he gushed. “And I got to see the guns.”
But Devin’s favorite part of the day wasn’t the fighter plane, the guns or even the big, green tanks. What he enjoyed most was decorating his great-grandfather’s headstone with pennies, in honor of the penny collection the World War II veteran kept up while alive. It’s a tradition the family honors every year.
Families performed similar private rituals all across the cemetery. During the ceremony, Major General Brian E. Alvin called attention to those intimate moments between the departed and their loved ones by paraphrasing a speech by the late Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
“On this day,” he said, “when we decorate their graves, their spirits are with us.”