In Memory of Sacrifice : Fallen Defenders Honored in Public Ceremony, Private Reflection

With solemn cemetery ceremonies and festive beachside barbecues, veterans and families across Ventura County on Monday honored those who died fighting for their country.

At Ivy Lawn Memorial Park in Ventura, representatives of 48 organizations stood among 700 American flags and laid wreaths on a symbolic tomb as part of a Memorial Day observance. Representing mothers who lost children in war, Margaret Merck, 79, of Ventura, laid a wreath from her wheelchair in memory of her son killed in the Korean War.

In Simi Valley, more than 150 people gathered at the public cemetery for a memorial service. Five Vietnam veterans arrived at the services on roaring Harley-Davidsons, their gleaming chrome only narrowly outshined by the brass buttons on the dress uniforms of the Marine color guard that opened the ceremony.

Many county residents, however, celebrated the holiday by jamming parks and beaches, despite the hazy skies.

“We’ve got tri-tip, we’ve got chicken, we’ve got hot dogs, we’ve got burgers, we’ve got steak, we’ve got beans. We’ve got a full-course dinner here,” said James Nigbur, 30, as he watched flames jump from a bed of charcoal beneath a grill at Oxnard State Beach.

Damon Sanchez, who was renting bicycles and in-line skates to visitors at the park, said it was the busiest weekend he has had this year. “There’s a lot of people,” he said, while preparing his own charcoal fire on a grill behind the rental counter.

But for Linda Bravo Galvan of Oxnard, the Memorial Day holiday is about more than booming business.

“It’s not about sales at the store and barbecues and long weekends,” she said. “It’s very important.”

So Galvan took her 12-year-old daughter and a 5-year-old grandson to Ivy Lawn Memorial Park, where, away from the speakers trading salutes and tributes to those who died in uniform, the children dusted the black marble grave markers by hand.

“Honoring these heroes doesn’t always have to be about the past,” said Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley), keynote speaker at the Ventura event. “We need to maintain our military strength and our stature as the world’s last remaining superpower.”

In Simi Valley, Mayor Gregory A. Stratton said Memorial Day is important because “it gives us a time to reflect on what it was they died for.”

Indeed, the desire to join with others in reflecting brought many to cemeteries on Monday.

“It’s just so much history in a cemetery,” said Peggy Briggs, 67, of Simi Valley, who lost a brother-in-law and a next-door neighbor in World War II. “It just helps me to be with other people.”

In Ventura, Ron Ortega, 46, stood on the fringes of the crowd with his wife. Wearing a white T-shirt, jeans, and a battered Army hat, Ortega said he was thinking of his Vietnam buddies from the 101st Airborne Division--”my friends that I left over there.”

“This is a day for them,” Ortega said.

And, although it may not have looked it, there was even some reflecting going on at Oxnard State Beach, amid the flying Frisbees and bouncing soccer balls and the smell of meat and charcoal that filled the grassy field next to the ocean.

Abel Moncada, 43, of El Rio, sat on a picnic blanket with an open cooler and a blaring radio nearby. Biting into a sandwich as he and his family waited for the charcoal to heat up, he said that he, too, is a Vietnam veteran who served with the 101st Airborne in 1970 and 1971.

“There’s a lot of hard feelings for veterans these days,” he said.

James Nigbur also thought of men and women in uniform as he readied food for the grill. He was a Navy cook for nine years and said he had friends who served in Desert Storm.

“I really appreciate what everyone has done,” he said.