Mexican-Born Marines Buried in a Day of Sorrow and Pride

Two young Marines, both natives of Mexico who gave their lives for the United States, were laid to rest Friday in Southern California.

Lance Cpl. Jesus Suarez del Solar, 20, was buried at Oak Hill Memorial Park Cemetery in Escondido as his family and friends released white balloons and tossed flowers onto his casket.

Cpl. Jose Angel Garibay, 21, was honored at a memorial service at St. Joachim Roman Catholic Church in Costa Mesa before burial with full military honors at Riverside National Cemetery.

Auxiliary Bishop Jaime Soto of the Diocese of Orange presided over the service for Garibay, but the words he spoke applied to both men.

“Every soldier goes to war with the hope that his sacrifice will bring peace and that there will be an end to war,” Soto said. “We gather today to honor such a soldier.”

Suarez, who immigrated to the United States six years ago, died March 27 while fighting in Iraq with the 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, leaving his wife, Sayne, and an infant son, Erik.

Speaking at a Mass at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Escondido earlier in the day, Sayne Suarez said she was honored to be married to Suarez.

“He was such a good and loving father, husband and son,” she said, choking back tears. “Jesus, we all love you and miss you.”

Hundreds of friends, relatives and community members attended the two-hour Mass, which began with the singing of “America the Beautiful” and was conducted in English and Spanish.

Father Peter Navarra praised Suarez as a son of both Mexico and America who sacrificed his life to free the Iraqi people and who serves as an inspiration for others.

“We are here to pray for and honor a hero,” Navarra said. “In addition to sorrow today, Jesus Suarez has also given us a great sense of pride.”

Several relatives and friends wore T-shirts with a photo of Suarez in uniform. Others simply wore white, in what his father, Fernando Suarez del Solar, said was a symbol of both peace and light. Suarez’s nieces, both toddlers, wore white angel wings on their backs.

“We are lighting his final journey,” Suarez del Solar said.

After the Mass, police led a motorcade to the cemetery in Escondido. They followed a route that passed locations special to Suarez: his high school, his apartment, the mall where he spent many afternoons.

At the cemetery, a bugler played taps and an officer presented American flags to Suarez’s widow and his mother, Rosa Suarez. Then Suarez’s uncles and father folded a Mexican flag and handed it to his mother.

Suarez graduated in 2001 from Valley High School in Escondido and enlisted soon after. He married his high school sweetheart in Las Vegas 11 months ago. The couple moved into their first apartment together in January, and Suarez was deployed a few weeks later.

His friend, Edgar Vasquez, 22, said being a Marine was everything Suarez wanted. “He knew it was dangerous, but it was exciting for him,” he said. “It was his passion.”

Suarez loved wrestling and dancing and often visited his hometown of Tijuana, friends said. Although he never applied to become a U.S. citizen, his wife accepted posthumous citizenship for him.

Garibay was remembered Friday in ceremonies that bridged the cultures that shaped his life.

A somber memorial service that shifted from English to Spanish at the church in Costa Mesa drew an overflow crowd. Aging U.S. veterans of World War II sat next to young Latino couples with children dressed in their Sunday finest. Next to them sat mothers of servicemen and women who are still overseas.

“He had a lot of family,” the Marine’s uncle, Urbano Garibay, told them. “All of you are our family.”

On one side of the chapel was a contingent of Marines. On the other side, a group of Costa Mesa police officers, whose department made Garibay an honorary member of the force -- a dream fulfilled posthumously.

At the service’s end, Soto and other clergy were followed out of the church by Garibay’s coffin, accompanied by six Marine pallbearers. They were followed by Garibay’s family, some of whom wept.

Outside the church, the crowd watched as Garibay’s casket was placed in a hearse for the drive to Riverside and a short graveside ceremony.

“I didn’t know him,” said Bob Griffin, 44, a telecommunications engineer from Huntington Beach who took the day off work to attend the church service. “But I’m a former Marine. And Marines, we are all linked -- past, present and future.

“I just thought of myself at this age, and wondered whether I was ready then to make the sacrifice he did,” Griffin said, looking down at a photo he held of Garibay in his dress uniform. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with this. Probably put it in my Bible.”

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Times staff writer Zeke Manaya contributed to this report.