Ceremonies Honor Veterans

They are only eight feet tall.

But the granite columns that were unveiled on a bluff above the ocean Thursday were casting a giant shadow across Santa Monica.

In a display of patriotism for a place seen by some as a center of antiwar sentiment, leaders dedicated an innovative monument to this country’s military veterans.

The columns saluting the five branches of the armed services at Palisades Park are positioned to perfectly line up their shadows across the monument just once a year: at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month--the moment the World War I armistice took effect.

And as the shadows inched their way to 11 a.m. during Thursday’s Veterans Day ceremony, officials hoisted the black-bordered POW-MIA flag in their city to end a simmering dispute with Vietnam War veterans.

“This is going to become a national memorial,” predicted Jack Siegal, a member of a citizens group that helped plan the unusual bluff-top display.

The ceremony was one of several in the Southland that honored those who have served in this country’s armed forces.

In Carson, a replica of a veterans wall listing the names of hundreds of city residents who have served in the military was displayed in a celebration at that community’s Veterans Park.

In Sylmar, medals earned by a pair of World War II veterans but never awarded were presented by Rep. Howard Berman (D-Mission Hills) at Mission College.

Former Air Force Capt. Lillian Keil, a World War II and Korean conflict veteran from West Covina who is the military’s most-decorated servicewoman, placed a memorial wreath at the 40th annual Veterans Day commemoration at Forest Lawn Memorial-Park in Burbank.

In Seal Beach, Marines from the Naval Weapons Station served as honor guards and provided a rifle salute at a Veterans Day service. Master of ceremonies David Van Aken, a World War II veteran who served in the Army’s 86th Infantry Division in Europe, said most of the veterans in attendance were from that war.

“But it was good to see veterans there from Korea and Vietnam, too,” Van Aken said.

Homeless veterans in downtown Los Angeles were honored on skid row with a musical program jointly conducted by the Union Rescue Mission and the Salvation Army. And patients at the VA hospital in West Los Angeles were entertained with music and drill teams.

Flyovers by pilots from a Riverside aviation club began and ended the dedication rites in Santa Monica.

War veterans from the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard and Air Force joined active duty members in pulling away banners covering the stone columns.

Retired Navy Rear Adm. Ronald Tucker, a Santa Monica native who lives in Phoenix, told a crowd of several hundred that the site at Ocean Avenue and Santa Monica Boulevard perfectly represents the air, land and sea where Americans have fought to preserve liberty.

Tucker watched as the five columns’ shadows slowly crept over the sun-drenched park’s lawn. At exactly 11 a.m. the shadows almost perfectly covered five fingers of stone that extend from the columns’ base as part of the memorial.

Although Veterans Day honors servicemen of all eras, the Nov. 11 date is symbolic because it was the day in 1918 that the armistice was signed by Germany to end what everyone assumed was the “war to end all wars,” explained retired Army Maj. Gen. Robert Lame of San Gabriel.

City officials are looking into ways of dealing with their POW-MIA flag problem. Several groups of Vietnam veterans have demanded that it be permanently displayed at the new memorial.

There is no flagpole there, however. So officials on Thursday temporarily hoisted it above City Hall.