Southland pays tribute to war dead

Waiting for Memorial Day ceremonies to begin Monday at Los Angeles National Cemetery, retired Army Col. Ernest Macias recalled a telling case of mistaken identity.

He said he was leaving New York City’s Plaza Hotel when another guest, a woman dressed in fur, glanced at his Army uniform and mistook him for a doorman.

“Can you get me a cab?” she asked.

The colonel shook his head.

“But I can get you a tank,” he replied.

Macias cited the incident as evidence of a disconnect between many members of the public and the men and women in uniform who serve them.

He was one of hundreds who came to Westwood on Monday to honor America’s war dead while also mourning a lack of respect.

For Macias, this was epitomized during the Vietnam War era, when veterans would come back and people “would spit at you.”

Air Force Lt. Gen. Michael Hamel told the crowd that Memorial Day has lost its meaning for many Americans.

He said it has become a three-day weekend kicking off summer rather than a holiday conceived in the wake of the Civil War “to remind ourselves that freedom is not free.... “

“We pray,” he said, “that those in our nation have learned that they must never turn their backs on those who have served and risked their lives for us.”

The ceremonies at the nearly full cemetery, where nearly 85,000 veterans are buried and there is now room only for those killed in action, were among many scheduled around Southern California.

At Woodlawn Cemetery in Santa Monica, choirs from local middle schools were slated to sing patriotic songs.

In L.A.’s Eastside, an observance took place at the Mexican American All Wars Memorial at Cinco Puntos.

Santa Ana scheduled its 15th annual service -- “A Tribute to America’s Finest” -- at Fairhaven Memorial Park.

Among numerous San Diego-area events, a Vietnam veterans group scheduled a ceremony at Balboa Park.

And motorcyclists from throughout Southern California saluted veterans in a procession to Riverside National Cemetery.

The Westwood cemetery was a sea of American flags. Boy Scouts had planted them beside every marker.

Female veterans had a small ceremony of their own.

Stephanie Stone, who retired in 1996 after 20 years in the Navy as a hospital corpsman, said things had changed considerably for women in the service.

When her mother served in the Korean War, she said, women who married were forced out.

In her own generation, Stone said, women who became pregnant were forced out.

But now, she said, the military has pregnancy leave benefits similar to those available in civilian life.

Women are also now eligible for 90% of military jobs, said Darin Selnick of the Department of Veterans Affairs. They are excluded only from direct combat.

In Iraq and Afghanistan, that has been a distinction largely without meaning, he noted.

With roadside bombs and ambushes, Selnick said, women are now “fighting and dying” too.

ted.rohrlich@latimes.com