Veterans and Remembrance : Military: Garden Grove resident and others who fought in foreign wars pay respects to those who died by tending to their graves.

Some of them never quit fighting.

“A lot of them boys who fought for the country still deserve some recognition,” said Ed Stearns, a Garden Grove resident and veteran airman from World War II and the Korean War.

On the afternoon before Veterans Day, Stearns and eight other members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars quietly tended to the 265 graves of military men and women at Magnolia Cemetery. At the headstone of each of those who served the country in combat, they left white crosses, red poppies and an American flag. The crosses mark the resting place of veterans from battles spanning more than 100 years.

“The good Lord has been looking after me,” said Stearns. “I made it through 47 missions (during World War II).”

He said he pays his respects to Garden Grove’s war victims each year on both Veterans Day and Memorial Day because he feels an obligation to make sure war heroes are not forgotten.

When he is not preparing crosses for the dead, Stearns also dons his uniform, shines his shoes, and puts a picture of his B-17 crew under his arm to raise money for VFW causes by selling poppies outside local grocery stores.

“There are those of us that keep fighting for recognition in our own way--and this is one way,” said Irene Porter, a veteran of the signal corps in New Guinea in 1944, who was also helping decorate veterans’ graves for today’s holiday. “Not enough people, until Desert Storm, remembered our veterans. But now I see flags in the houses, see them in the streets, and see them on the cars.”

Porter said her kitchen table is filled with veterans newsletters and flyers announcing fund-raisers to assist veterans who are struggling to find food and shelter as well as appreciation.

“I have one son who was a veteran of Vietnam,” Porter said. “I can see the difference now. They were truly forgotten men. . . . Desert Storm has brought a little peace to them, but it’s long overdue.”