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(Final in a two-part series on honor guard, reprint-
ed with permission)

by David Montero Watchara Phomicinda — LA Daily News staff photographer
LA Daily News
Brittarose Morgan, 77, right, wife of the late Airman First Class Roland Morgan with daughter, Kym Car-
Gerald Morgan knew this day was coming when doctors PLFKDHOZDWFKWKH86ÀDJEHLQJIROGHGE\6HQLRU$LUPDQ-RVHSK7UXMLOORRIWKH0DUFK)LHOG%OXH(DJOHV
told him a few weeks ago that the cancer had swept through Total Force Honor Guard at Riverside National Cemetery in Riverside, Tuesday, May 19, 2015.
his dad’s body.
See HONOR page 6
It had just been 18 months prior that the initial diagnosis
was first made. It seemed unfathomable. This was the man
who, when Morgan was just a boy, pulled the car over at the
scene of an accident on a Los Angeles freeway and began
yanking people from the wreckage.

Didn’t the cancer know that it couldn’t mess with the
guy who bandaged the woman who was bleeding profusely
while he also flagged down cars for help? Didn’t it know
he served in the U.S. Air Force in Southeast Asia — stop-
ping smugglers and dangerous human traffickers just as the
Vietnam War was starting? Didn’t cancer know this was his
dad. Tough. Ten-feet-tall in a 6-foot frame. He never stopped
fighting. But he was also a realist.

“He was never afraid of dying,” Morgan said. “He was
confident in his faith. He flat-out told us that when his time
was up, it was up.”

Time ran out for Airman Roland Morgan on May 8. He
was 77.

The funeral was set for May 19 at Riverside Nation-
al Cemetery. Morgan woke up early, put on his dark