Veterans Honored for Service, Sacrifice

On their backs were the uniforms, dotted with badges of courage earned in service. In their minds, memories of the battles and the misery. In their hearts, pain for those who didn’t come back.

More than 1,500 war veterans, their families and friends gathered Saturday at Ivy Lawn Memorial Park for the eighth annual Massing of Colors and Service of Remembrance, one of a dozen events that took place throughout Ventura County, from Ojai to Thousand Oaks, to commemorate Veterans Day.

“We’re here to celebrate not only those veterans who died but those still living, and their duty to pass along what they fought for and why they fought,” said Lt. Charles Bennett, former commander of the Ventura County chapter of the Military Order of the World Wars, which sponsored the event at Ivy Lawn.

Services began promptly at 11 a.m., when on the 11th day of the 11th month veterans across the nation take part in a moment of silence to observe Armistice Day--the day World War I ended, Bennett said.

Before a flyover by the Confederate Air Force, more than 30 color guards representing American soldiers from the Revolutionary War to the present marched onto the field. Astronaut Gordon Cooper was the keynote speaker.

“I ask you to think about the thousands of crosses on gravestones of those people who gave the ultimate sacrifice so we could have a free country to live in,” Cooper said.

Lynn and Tom Slosson of Simi Valley brought their 11-year-old daughter Katelyn to watch their 14-year-old son, Clint, a Sea Cadet with the Trident Squad at Point Mugu.

“It’s very important to know where you come from,” Lynn Slosson said.

“And the prices that were paid in the past,” her husband added. “It gives you a sense of what freedom really means.”

History was a theme in Saturday’s ceremony. Don Ancell, dressed as Abraham Lincoln, delivered the Gettysburg Address, and Col. Robert Colbern offered an homage to Gen. George C. Marshall.

“I can remember hearing the stories about Marshall, and how the decisions he made affected the outcome of the war,” said Dudley Averill, 76, who served in the Army from 1943 to 1946. “We all admired him.”

Speakers also stressed the importance of veterans helping each other.

That message struck Kevin Sheahan, 49, an active member of the Vietnam Veterans of Ventura County.

From 1970 to 1971, Sheahan worked as a medic, treating the wounded in the Vietnam War. To this day when he hears an ambulance siren, he said, he gets a rush of adrenaline and a deep-rooted urge to help.

“It’s still tough,” he said. “It’s so hard to see people going through suffering.”

His memories came flooding back in January, when Sheahan, a communications specialist for the U.S. Department of Defense on San Nicolas Island, was one of many who waded through the wreckage of the Alaska Airlines crash that killed all 88 aboard. When Sheahan needed them for emotional support, his fellow veterans were there.

That is what brought him out on Saturday.

“It’s a common bond, and we have to stick together,” Sheahan said. “We’re all we’ve got it seems like sometimes. So we tend to take care of each other.”