A 24-hour vigil for veterans

Four years ago, Devin Cardenas put on his Army greens and went to the Mexican American All Wars Memorial in Boyle Heights to honor soldiers who died in service.

The next year, at age 20, the Army Ranger was killed in a live-fire exercise in Washington state while preparing to fight in Afghanistan.

On Sunday, his mother, Diana, brought a wreath to the memorial to honor her son and all fallen U.S. troops “to let them know their sacrifice was not in vain, and they will not be forgotten.”

For the memorial’s 60th anniversary, Eastside veterans organized a 24-hour vigil with law enforcement officers, veterans, active-duty soldiers, youths and community members standing guard at the site. The vigil is set to end at 10 a.m. today with a 21-gun salute and a display of wreaths.

Held at Cinco Puntos, where Cesar Chavez Avenue meets Indiana and Lorena streets, the event is particularly relevant to some attendees because of the controversy over Latino soldiers initially being excluded from filmmaker Ken Burns’ upcoming seven-part PBS documentary series on World War II.

“We won’t forget what our men and women have done,” said Arturo Herrera, 70, an Air Force veteran who served in Libya after World War II and whose brother was killed in Korea.

State Sen. Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles) said she was outraged that the 14-hour series did not at first include the stories of Latinos, who enlisted by the thousands and represented a higher percentage of the armed forces than they did as American civilians.

“We were part of American history and we will not be left out,” Romero said.

Burns agreed to reedit the series to include Latino soldiers after Latino advocacy groups protested. The documentary is set to premiere in September.

On the day before Memorial Day, there were several other events in Southern California communities, including Arcadia, Cypress Park and Van Nuys. And a number of people paid special attention to the crosses that are frequently placed on the beach in Santa Monica to represent every member of the U.S. armed services killed in Iraq.

The Boyle Heights vigil was organized by Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 4696 and American Legion Post 804.

Daniel Ortiz, a Gulf War veteran and VFW official, said the organizers tried to get the word out to more than just veterans groups to show support for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“We’ve just kept this to the veterans associations for so long,” he said. “It was kind of like preaching to the choir.”

Volunteers at the vigil “stood guard” for 30-minute shifts as families of deceased service members pinned photos of their loved ones on a bulletin board and paused to remember them.

In a big white hat and sunglasses, Stella Beltran, 82, brought a photo of her late husband, Peter, as a 17-year-old sailor. He died in March of pulmonary fibrosis that she says was caused by being exposed to asbestos in ship ducts long ago.

They had known each other since the third grade at Euclid Avenue Elementary School, just down the street. She said she had a crush on him as they grew older but didn’t say anything.

He enlisted at 17 and traveled the world as a signalman. They started dating when he got back in 1946 and were married the next year. Beltran remembers walking by the memorial on her way to buy food as it was being erected in 1947.

Now living in San Gabriel, she decided the monument would be the best place to remember her husband.

Beltran recalled how, in his final months in the hospice at the Long Beach Veterans Affairs Medical Center, he would tell her to bring extra food and coffee for the homeless veterans who spent time there.

“He was always looking out for his servicemen,” she said.

joe.mozingo@latimes.com