Honoring vets past and present

By Shaun Bishop  |  San Mateo Daily News  |  Link to article

As the flag rose slowly Monday morning over Golden Gate National Cemetery, hundreds of people of all ages stood silently to remember fallen veterans laid to rest at the San Bruno site and elsewhere.

In many ways, the annual Memorial Day ceremony was a traditional homage to those who paid the ultimate price, complete with a brass band playing American classics and more than 112,000 miniature flags waving in the green hills.

But attendees of the annual Memorial Day ceremony were also reminded to keep active military men and women in their thoughts as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan continue.

"There are no words I can offer to lighten their burden or make their mission any less dangerous," said newly elected U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier, D-San Mateo, the event's keynote speaker.

But she promised that when the troops come home, "we'll have their back" with education funding and robust health care.

"A headstone and six feet of earth should not be the extent of the package we guarantee our fighting forces," Speier said.

Monday was the 140th observance of Memorial Day and ceremonies across the Bay Area took place to honor the memory of military service-people. On the Peninsula, Speier also spoke at an afternoon ceremony at Cypress Lawn Memorial Park in Colma.

Speakers at the San Bruno event said they were grateful for the ample turnout, which left standing room only in front of the speaker's podium.

"It is your unwavering support that makes me proud to serve this great nation," said Maj. Ted Wong of the U.S. Marine Corps, a 22-year veteran of the service.

The day started with a parade featuring Boy Scouts, California Kids for Troops and the United Services Organization marching to the sounds of a bagpiper.

Occasional references to the ongoing military conflicts were unavoidable, but the service focused more on those who died in past wars, dating to 1868 when Memorial Day was first conceived by Gen. John Logan to honor Civil War veterans on both sides.

Capt. Roland Harris of the U.S. Navy, a fourth-generation member of the service, choked up a bit when mentioning his father, who was shot down near the end of the Vietnam War.

"We are all family because we have done something that few can ever really grasp - that is, a true service above self," Harris said.

Several also spoke in homage to Rep. Tom Lantos, the longtime San Mateo Congressman who died in February of cancer.

Anita Maxwell, president of the Avenue of Flags committee that put on the ceremony, said Lantos "has always been supportive of the veterans' needs and he loved this great country called America."

Speier, who on her first day in office gave a fiery speech calling for troop withdrawals from Iraq, said troops that have died in combat should be remembered with hopes "that others never have to meet their fate."

"They deserve our solemn and unabiding guarantee that, from this day forward, the powers that decide when and where we commit our military will think less of politics and economics than they do the lives and families and communities that are devastated by the atrocities of war," Speier said.

E-mail Shaun Bishop at sbishop@dailynewsgroup.com.