Memorial Day reading
On Sunday, the Los Angeles Times will publish its detailed studies of the nearly 500 Californians who have made the ultimate sacrifice in Iraq and Afghanistan. Here is their preview:
Nearly 500 Californians have lost their lives while in service to their country in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. At least 58 were immigrants; more than 160 were parents, who left behind more than 300 children. One descended from two presidents; another was a Guatemalan street orphan taken in by an American
family as a teenager. One high school lost six of its graduates.
As The Times reports:
At age 7, Victor H. Toledo-Pulido was smuggled across the border from Mexico through rugged mountains into California. He and another soldier were killed in May 2007 when a roadside bomb exploded near their vehicle southeast of Baghdad. "They judge us, and they say we just come to take their jobs and positions, but we also make sacrifices. Victor worked since he was little, in the fields and in restaurants," his mother, Maria Gaspar, said after the 22-year-old was killed. "He was Mexican, but he thought like an American. And he gave his life for this country."
The father of Bunny Long, 22, a Marine lance corporal who immigrated to the U.S. from Cambodia, where he spent four years in a Khmer Rouge labor camp recalled.
"This is our home," his father, Sim Long, said after his son was killed in March 2006 by a suicide car bomber in Fallouja, west of Baghdad. "I'm very proud that Bunny was able to give back to his country. Our country."
Another father had a different perspective:
"I had my doubts about him and the Marines, knowing how my son rebelled against authority," said Ken Walker, the father of Marine Staff Sgt. Allan K. Walker, 28, of Lancaster, who was killed in April 2004 when his Humvee convoy was attacked in Iraq's Anbar province. "When he came back from boot camp, I was so proud. They took a punk kid and turned out a young man with a sense of honor."
Then there were those who joined because of what happened on Sept. 11:
"I'm ready to fight for my country," Marine Lance Cpl. Derek L. Gardner, 20, of San Juan Capistrano told The Times before he deployed to Iraq. He was among seven Marines killed in September 2004 when a bomb-laden vehicle was detonated near their convoy outside Fallouja.
Many of those killed were married. As one wife recalled:
"He saw his baby do his first steps. He was a real good father and a real good husband," Rebekah Reyes said of her husband, Army Spc. Daniel F. Reyes, 24, of San Diego. "He was always thinking about us. He called me every morning from Iraq." Reyes was one of two soldiers killed in July 2007 when their unit was attacked with indirect fire -- a military term that usually refers to mortar or rocket fire -- in Tunis, Iraq, south of Baghdad.
Check out the full report this Sunday, Memorial Day.



