Residents Give Salute to Veterans : Holidays: Former military personnel cluster around monuments and flags to recall public and private wars.

Winston Roche rose from the reviewing table as briskly as age would permit and saluted the wind-stretched flags borne by military men who could have been his grandchildren.

But for a slight tremble in his slender frame, the 95-year-old Roche was, for one brief moment, that youthful doughboy who laid down his rifle 75 years ago in a world war that was never supposed to have a number.

“I’m honored and privileged to be here at my age, to be among these young people,” said the grinning Roche, one of a sparse few who watched a parade file by at the Sepulveda Veterans Administration Medical Center on Veterans Day.

It was the same way throughout the San Fernando Valley as small knots of veterans clustered in cool autumn breezes around monuments, tombstones and flags to remember their public and private wars.

On the day that marked the 75th anniversary of the armistice that ended World War I, Roche and his surviving buddies were eleventh-hour heroes, living museum pieces for the young and not-so-young who might think the Argonne Forest was where Robin Hood lived.

Only moments before the parade started, the former 5th Infantry Division engineer, who was among the first American troops sent to Europe in 1917, patiently abided a throng of elementary school children pawing brazenly at the medals hung from his chest and peppering him with questions.

“Hi, boys and girls,” he began. “I was in World War I, way back in 1918.”

“What medal is that?” one of them yelled.

“This is the French Medal of Honor.” They whispered among themselves: “He got wounded! Ask him how he got wounded!”

“A shell burst and I was gassed twice. You’ve heard of mustard gas? It gets in your eyes and your lungs and it burns. It’s really bad.”

They nodded in awe, then were escorted away, leaving him with a “Bye, Winston,” chorus.

A scant 100 yards away, the much younger Peter Hanna also trembled, fighting back the nervousness that he said has haunted him from his combat in Vietnam. “I served a year in Vietnam,” said Hanna, 43. “That was enough time.”

Hanna served in the Northern I Corps from 1969 to 1970, 15 kilometers from the demilitarized zone. A losing battle against post-traumatic stress disorder put him in the hospital four months ago. He said he hoped to get out by Christmas, then put his life back together and go to college.

“Vietnam doesn’t get enough recognition. Korea doesn’t get enough either,” said Hanna, who watched the parade for 45 minutes before he and fellow patients were wheeled back inside to continue battles less glorified.

The country itself still is going through a healing process over Vietnam, Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alarcon told a gathering of veterans in San Fernando.

“I don’t think we’ve done enough historically, particularly in the past 20 years, to keep an attitude of thankfulness,” Alarcon told a group of about 50 who gathered under threatening skies at a downtown Veterans of Foreign Wars post.

Alarcon saluted San Fernando residents, many of whom he knew from childhood. “In disproportionate numbers, we’ve always been the first to stand up and fight,” Alarcon said of the predominantly Latino population. As he left the podium, he stopped to shake hands with a friend, Raymond Magdaleno.

A Mexican-American, Magdaleno served two tours in Vietnam as a U.S. Marine. His Mexican-born father served in World War II, and his son now serves in the Army.

“There’s been an abundance of Latinos who joined the service instead of waiting to be drafted,” said Magdaleno, 46. “We’re a very proud people. People as a whole don’t see that. They don’t know it.”