Page 1 - Aerotech News and Review, June 11, 2021

Aerotech News
Aerotech News
Aerotech News

Journal of Aerospace, Defense Industry and Veteran News
and Review
and Review
Learning to celebrate legacy of our fallen heroes

by Larry Grooms
special to Aerotech News

Traditional solemnity and formal military
precision were accompanied and enhanced by a
new and expanded perspective on honoring and
remembering America’s war dead this Memorial
Day morning in ceremonies at the Palmdale’s
Poncitlán Square Gazebo.
So subtle, natural and skillful was the change
in perspective on the morning’s messages that it
might easily be missed. This year both broadened
the list of those memorialized to include Gold
Star families and offered special thanks and rec-
ognition to veterans of the War in Vietnam.
It was after posting of the Colors by the Ed-
wards AFB Blue Eagles Color Guard; invocation
by VFW Post 3000 chaplain Fred Villa; the Na-
tional Anthem sung by Bobby Breech; the Pledge
of Allegiance and patriotic poetry readings, that
Dr. David Smith, Director of Air Force Plant 42
took the podium to set the stage for another per-
spective to follow.
Smith, in Air Force Officer Dress Uniform, re-
counted three examples of Americans in uniform
whose heroic sacrifices bring sadness, but also
bring joy. He spoke first of Marine Pvt. Peralta
who threw his body onto a grenade in the first
battle of Fallujah, losing his life to save his Iraq
War buddies.
Smith then spoke of someone close to him,
Chief Petty Officer Jenkins, the father of his
stepmother and an American sailor who put to
sea soon after the attack on Pearl Harbor. CPO
Jenkins went down with the USS Argonaut, but
as Smith put it, “is still on patrol.”
Finally, Smith told of four chaplains aboard the
ship Dorchester when it was torpedoed by a Ger-
man submarine. The clergymen, a Catholic priest,
a Jewish rabbi and two Protestant pastors, began
handing life jackets to the sailors, and when the
supply ran out, the clerics took off their flotation
jackets and handed them to four remaining crew
members. The chaplains sung a hymn together
and disappeared into the water.
The point in each case, Smith told the audience,
was that “missing them is healing; mourning them
is appropriate; and celebrating them is earned by
their sacrifice.” Photograph by Evelyn Kristo
With that conclusion expressed, a civilian in Ezekiel Ruiz, 3, of Palmdale, looks over an American flag set up in honor of fallen soldiers, as his father participates in a Memorial Day ceremony at
Poncitlan Square in Palmdale, Calif., May 31. The morning event was hosted by the City of Palmdale.
See PALMDALE, Page 2

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