Veterans Honored in Santa Ana
About 2,500 people gathered on a cloudy Memorial Day morning at Santa Ana’s Fairhaven Memorial Park for a poignant tribute to honor war veterans.
Tom Wall, a retired Marine colonel in full Corps dress, told his own story of an unknown soldier, trying to mirror the ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery.
He recalled for the crowd a Marine who, while under attack in Vietnam, continued to fight even as he was injured. He was shot twice as he made it to a machine gun. Then “a grenade blew him back, injuring his face and eyes, and he still made it back to the gun . . . ,” he said.
He urged listeners to remember men like that soldier, a man who died and could easily be forgotten, but should be remembered for his determination and heroism.
Bob Viviano, 69, a former Marine who lives in Orange, said Wall’s story touched him deeply: “Men like that soldier make me feel inferior. And they make me feel proud.”
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