Marines Pay Homage to Their Past

Some 500 hundred students from Los Naranjos Elementary school in Irvine joined hundreds of other enthusiastic spectators at the Marine Corps Air Station here Monday for the presentation of the Battle Colors of the Marine Corps.

The ceremony is held each year to commemorate the military campaigns in which Marines have fought. The units that perform the ceremony make 400 appearances a year and travel around the country performing traditional and contemporary music while executing precision drills.

“With about 80 of our children having parents over in the gulf and about 45% of our students with parents on this base, we felt this would be a great way to celebrate the cease-fire,” said Bruce Baron, principal of Los Naranjos. “We usually only bring a few of our classes each year, but this time we felt all the students at the school should have the opportunity to participate.”

Many observers in the stands were wearing decorative American flag pins and yellow ribbons in honor of those soldiers stationed in the Persian Gulf.

“I pretty much come out each year to see this because it’s a beautiful thing seeing those guys do the things they do,” said Tina Goraz, whose brother is currently stationed in the Persian Gulf. “This year, though, is a little different. I know the fighting has stopped but I still worry about my brother and if he will make it home OK. Coming out here makes me feel better because it represents one more battle the Marines can show they won and my brother was a part of that.”

The hourlong ceremony contains three segments.

The Battle Color of the Marine Corps includes 47 streamers carried by the Color Guard representing the battles, campaigns and expeditions Marines have played a part in since its inception two centuries ago.

The 80-member Drum and Bugle Corps, dressed in red jackets, also entertained the audience with music from the Walt Disney movie “Under the Sea” and from the Broadway musical “A Chorus Line.”

The program concluded with the Silent Drill Platoon in which each of the 24 men carried an M-1 rifle with fixed bayonet and demonstrated perfect symmetry while tossing and twirling the rifles in the air.

For 10-year-old Doug Walters, the soldiers not only represented a victory in the gulf but also a career.

“I’ve always wanted to be a soldier and I still do because the U.S.A. can beat anybody,” said Walters, wearing a yellow ribbon on his tennis shoe. “Now I want to be a soldier who plays the trumpet and marches in lines.”