Memorial Day reminds us memories come at a cost

Monday at Isidro Baca Park, Socorro residents thanked families who don’t have the memories of their grandparents, family, and friends. They gave thanks to their neighbors who are still in anguish for their lost loved ones. And they gave thanks to the heroes who helped us bring us freedom but didn’t get to see the peace that followed war.

Six individuals made us better understand the world we live in by sharing their stories of servicemen who had departed while never forgetting that our happiness, sadness, joy, and hope came at a cost.

Lt. Col. Dave Finley, spoke of a high school friend joined the Marines and died in Vietnam. “Edwin Hill was a friendly and an easy-going guy who always wanted to help others. Plus, he had a great sense of humor. So didn’t really surprise us to learn that he chose to serve our country and join the Marine Corps.”

In 1966 Hill had already been wounded once and treated. When he returned to active duty, he was driving a vehicle that struck a landmine. As the soldiers began evacuating the vehicle, Hill went back inside to make certain everyone was out, unfortunately that’s when he went back into to the vehicle, and it burst into flames.

Before he escaped, he was extensively burned and was flown back to the states to a naval hospital in Portsmouth, Vir., where he underwent a lengthy treatment and numerous skin grafts before he died in January 1967.

“That been a few years,” Finley said. “He didn’t get to have a family, raise children, enjoy hobbies, travel or make a huge variety of friends. Those are some of the things he never got to do.”

Finley, the master of ceremonies, asked five other speakers to share a similar personal story of those hundreds of Americans who have died in our wars.

Socorro Mayor Ravi Bhasker was graduating from high school in 1965 and entering college, when many of his friends were getting drafted.

David Allen was one of his high school friends who was a tremendous athlete. “He was a great athlete, big rugged and had red hair,” he said. “I was at the University of Kansas when we had heard he had been killed in Vietnam. Those people who were drafted, many of them didn’t have a choice. Some went to Canada, but many, many, may more did their duty, served their country, and gave us their lives to serve in Vietnam.”

For those of his generation, Bhasker said, people remember the 1960s. They grew up hearing about the draft and learning where people were going to serve. While Socorro has its beloved monument honoring New Mexicans who died in the Vietnam War, Bhasker encouraged those who had to chance to travel to Washington, D.C., to go to Arlington National Cemetery and see the rows and rows of monuments honoring those who have died in service to their country.

Long-time Socorro educator, coach and veteran Chuck Zimmerly remembered growing up in West Texas, almost everyone he knew was a veteran. “We’d go to a picnic and the guys who served in Europe would be on one side of the building and guys who served in the Pacific would sit on the other side. One group would be talking about how they froze their butts off and the other side would talk about how hot and sticky it was on the islands. I could have sat there and listened for hours to their stories. I wish I had written them down.”

Since living in his family’s home, Zimmerly shared a special story written in his mother’s diary about the news of his uncle Eddie’s death in World War II.

“Notification came to my grandmother and my mother wrote it in her diary this way: Mom was at the kitchen sink when she saw her sons, Sam, Joe, Charlie, and Ben coming up the driveway. She knew something was up when they came in the back door, grandmother raised her apron in front of her face saying ‘No no, no.’ Grandfather, came out his room and asked, ‘Was it Richard or Eddie?’ They told me it was Edie. He puffed his pipe, went back to his room.”

Zimmerly said his grandmother knew she had two sons in combat, one in Europe and the other in the islands of the Pacific. She was told that Eddie was declared missing in action.

Immediately their family started a vigil at San Miguel. It wasn’t until May 16, a month later, they were notified he was killed in action.

“My mother wrote this in her diary…the candle is out, the vigil is over,” he said. “Now I have to write the toughest letter I’ll ever have to write. I got to write my darling Richard and tell him his baby brother won’t be coming home.”

Zimmerly reminded the public, “We have a sacred obligation to honor those who have fallen in the name of this wonderful country. We must also love and support those who are left.”

Retired Socorro County Sheriff Bill Armijo told the stories of his uncle Lydio Armijo who served in the U.S. Navy from 1952 to 1973 and traveled all over the world.

If there was anyone who was proud to serve his country it was his uncle. “There was never a day when he didn’t talk about his experiences in the Navy,” Armijo said.

One of the stories Armijo told was about his uncle making a rhubarb pie for his commanding officer when he was a pastry chef. “When Lydio delivered the pie and the commander tried a slice, he proclaimed it was the best rhubarb pie he’d ever eaten.”

It was so good the Commander ordered him to make rhubarb pie to feed everyone on the ship.

The other story Armijo told was his uncle’s love for boxing. “He was really proud of his boxing and rarely lost a fight. He showed me his stance and put his right hand up and he’d wait for the other Marine to get close to him and he’d come up with his other hand and knock them out every time. He loved to tell that story. As a matter of fact, one of the times he was telling the story he almost knocked me out.”

His uncle was quite a character, but to Bill Armijo he also was a very blessed man. “When he said that to me, it made me realize how blessed I was. So, when people ask me how I’m doing today, I tell them I am blessed. And I’m so blessed to be here today. My uncle was a true American. He loved God. He loved the military and his country and his family.”

Daun Medaris talked about his veteran brothers who left home as teenagers in their early 20s for an unknown adventure. “They loved their country enough to defend it and protect it with their very lives.”

These guys said goodbye to friends and family and everything else they knew he said. “They learned the basics and that was it you know we were in a war. They went out there and they learned the basics. Then they were scattered in the wind to the far corners of the Earth. They found new friends and new family. They became brothers and sisters, regardless of color, race, or creed. They had plenty of good times, but also plenty of bad times. They didn’t get enough sleep. They smoked and they drank too much. They picked up both good and bad habits. They worked hard, that’s what we needed them to do, but they played even harder. They didn’t earn a great wage. When I went in 1975, my wage was under $400. And that was a lot. They experienced the happiness of mail call. And they didn’t know when or even if they were going to see home again.

“They grew up fast, and yet somehow, they never grew up at all. They fought for our freedom as well as the freedom of others. Some of them saw the world and some of them didn’t. Some of them dealt with physical warfare, but most of them dealt with psychological warfare.”

More important, Medaris said, they have seen and dealt with things we can’t even describe or explain. But they counted on each other to get the job done and hopefully survive.

“They counted on each other, to get the job done and hopefully survive,” he said. “That was a prayer we always had for them … to make it back. Their sacrifices had no monetary value.”

State Representative Tara Jaramillo spoke of the three Socorro High School graduates who lost their lives in 1967, 1968, and 1968: Isidro Baca, Willy Lee and Don Alexander.

As a student of Chuck Zimmerly, Jaramillo remembers her teacher instilling his love for America in them. “Charles Zimmerly was my math teacher in the late 1980s. He taught math, of course, but like all great teachers he taught me so much more,” she said. “I recall one year, he shared he was a Marine in Vietnam and shared his stories. He relayed the names of Isidro Baca, Willy Lee and Don Alexander who also fought in Vietnam who did not make it home.”

She recalled Zimmerly made his students believe they had the freedoms we have today because of the gallant men and women who served their country.

“We have the freedom to practice religion as we so choose and the freedom to walk down the streets because of those gentlemen from Socorro,” she said. “He asked us when we went home to talk to our parents about them … because there was importance in remembering.”

Later when Jaramillo traveled to Washington D.C. with her children and her mother, they paid a visit to the Vietnam Memorial and found the names of Baca, Lee and Alexander. “I took my children there to honor them.”

The day’s services concluded with a rifle salute by the 93rd Troop Command, New Mexico National Guard from Albuquerque. Taps were played by George and Richard Murillo.

Johannes Heynekamp and Stefan Malone played bagpipes. Tori Murillo sang the National Anthem and Daniel’s Funeral Home printed the programs for the service.