On the Home Front : One East L.A. Avenue, With 4 Men on Duty in Mideast, Is a Street of Stars and Stripes

Out on La Verne Avenue in East Los Angeles, a working-class neighborhood of worn stucco homes where the Spanish language is a part of everyday life, the residents have learned a new geographical term-- El Golfo Persico.

The Persian Gulf.

Their interest is understandable. Four of their sons--who consider home to be two blocks of La Verne sandwiched between Whittier and Olympic boulevards--have been sent to the Middle East hot spot. And two others, both Marines who grew up in the same stretch of La Verne, are stationed in safe enough places, for now. But as their parents know, that could change.

A Defense Department spokesman said there is no way of knowing whether a particular street or neighborhood in the United States has sent an extraordinary number of men and women to the gulf.

“We wouldn’t even confirm anything, even if we knew,” the spokesman said. “But there may be some areas, places that have more personnel deployed (to the Persian Gulf) than others.”

On La Verne, residents say there is no need for confirmation. The street has done its share.

The parents said they received telephone calls and letters from their sons, informing them of their deployment as part of the U.S. effort to force Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to give up his country’s occupation of tiny Kuwait.

Here’s the roll call on La Verne:

* Timothy Reyes, 20, Navy.

* Adrian Yracheta, 21, Army.

* William Martinez, 20, Army.

* Manuel Castro, 23, Navy.

The two other La Verne servicemen, although not in the Middle East, also merit mention in the eyes of the folks on the street because they have chosen to be in the military. They are Joe Villarreal Jr., a 21-year-old Marine, and 19-year-old John Chavez, who joined the Corps four months ago.

Although some parents admit that they fear for their sons, their pride in the young men and their roots in the neighborhood is evident.

“We are so proud of him,” Rachel Reyes said of her son Timothy. “I mean proud . . . . You know what I mean?”

Said Irene Yracheta, who works at the nearby Lupe’s Hamburgers stand: “It is just a proud feeling to know that Mexicanos want to serve. I think it’s an honor to serve this country.”

Thinking it over a moment more, she added, “If I were a man and if I was able to, I know I’d go.”

The pride of some parents is so great that Rachel Reyes, for example, hoisted a large U.S. flag and a Navy SEAL banner--her son is a member of that elite sea-air-land commando group--over her home at 1030 S. La Verne shortly after President Bush announced the deployment of U.S. forces to the gulf.

“I’m not taking them down until my Timmy comes home,” she vowed.

Others have taken to wearing U.S. flag lapel pins or displaying yellow ribbons outside their homes.

Reyes has not been afraid to promote La Verne’s pride in the four, even at public demonstrations where protesters have questioned U.S. involvement in the conflict.

At the Aug. 25 Chicano Moratorium march on Whittier Boulevard, which marked the 20th anniversary of the violent anti-Vietnam War protest, Reyes and a friend hauled the Navy SEAL banner up to the boulevard and flaunted it in the faces of the marchers.

“This is a bunch of b.s.,” she growled at the time. “Our sons are overseas while these people are doing this. This is the banner that they (marchers) ought to be proud of.”

Although she has lived in the area for 18 years, William Martinez’s mother is not well known along La Verne. A native of Cuba, Maria Martinez is just learning where the Persian Gulf is.

“We watch TV a lot for news and pray,” said Martinez, who is described by another son, Miguel, as being “Stars and Stripes all the way” because of son William’s presence with the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division in Saudi Arabia.

Manuel Castro’s mother recently moved away from La Verne Avenue, but the sailor’s home of record--as the military refers to one’s street address--will always be a converted garage, a stone’s throw from Olympic Boulevard.

“Once you live here,” one resident crowed, “you’re always from here. That’s it.”

The four young servicemen in the gulf are remembered in the area as good sons, even if they did not all go to the area’s well-known school, Garfield High. Timothy Reyes’ attendance at Montebello High School and Adrian Yracheta’s education at a Fresno high school are not held against them.

“Well, I guess they’re good schools,” La Verne resident Juan Gomez sniffed. “Anyone from this area would improve them,” he said of the schools.

Other residents along La Verne seem to take in stride the fact that a seemingly high number of young men from that little barrio are in the Persian Gulf.

“Some of us heard talk about the mijos (an affectionate Spanish term that means ‘our sons’),” Jose Gutierrez, a 60ish-looking La Verne resident, said between sips of cold beer in a Whittier Boulevard bar. “My boy went to Vietnam. I got a brother who went to Korea. I guess a lot of us really don’t think about that much, because so many of us go into the military.

“Why not these boys too?”

Indeed, Chicano historians are fond of pointing to the tradition of Latinos serving in the military with distinction, with some Mexican-Americans even tracing their families’ military tradition back to the French occupation of Mexico during the American Civil War.

For example, more Mexican-American soldiers received the Medal of Honor in World War II than any other ethnic group. During the Vietnam War, while Chicanos made up only 10% of the population in the U.S. Southwest, they accounted for nearly 20% of all casualties from that region.

The parents of the four servicemen in the Persian Gulf, as well as those of the two Marines, go about the business of everyday life, trying not to let their sons’ safety worry them too much.

“I lost a brother who was in the Marine Corps in Vietnam,” said Steve Reyes, Rachel’s husband. “My son knows that I’m proud of him. It would be a great loss (if he dies in the Gulf), but I would know that he served his country.”

The parents seem to take the attitude of many who send off sons and daughters to a dangerous situation--be supportive, be hopeful, and put an offspring’s destiny into the hands of the Almighty.

“Whatever it has to be, it has to be,” said Irene Yracheta, Adrian’s mother. “It’s a terrible thing to have them over there. But if it wasn’t him, then it would be someone else. And everybody has a mom or a wife.

“He’s in God’s hands.”