CORRRECTION: Marine Cpl. Joseph Heredia of Santa Maria died in 2004 while serving in Iraq. The year of his death was incorrect in a front-page article Tuesday.

Retired U.S. Navy Master Sgt. W. Carl Valler is no stranger to losing a beloved soldier to war.

On Monday, Valler - along with about 200 other people - gathered at the Santa Maria Cemetery to take part in a Memorial Day ceremony honoring America's fallen and missing soldiers.

“I come every year. My brother-in-law lays over there,” the 85-year-old veteran said, pointing in the general direction of his brother-in-law's grave.

Valler, who wore his full military uniform with his Purple Heart pinned proudly to his lapel, also lost half of the members of the company he fought with during World War II, and his uncle died in battle during World War I.

Nearly every grave in Santa Maria Cemetery was festooned with bright flowers and plants, and adorned with miniature American flags.

Larger flags lined the cemetery walkways and flapped in the breeze as a mild late-spring sun shone down.

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The ceremony, put on by American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars posts, featured a three-gun solute and a bugler playing “Taps.”

Monica Diaz, mother of Marine Cpl. Joseph Heredia - a Santa Maria High School graduate who died in Iraq in 2002 - gave the keynote address.

When a soldier dies in conflict, his or her loved ones “are left with ... the challenge of living with the memories,” Diaz said. “An empty chair ... a Mother's Day yearning to hear (their son's) voice one more time. Remember the mothers and families left behind.”

According to a 2007 Congressional Research Report, 1,004,015 American soldiers have died in war beginning with the Revolutionary War, though that number does not include the

soldiers who have died in Iraq.

In March, the Pentagon issued a report stating that 4,000 soldiers have died in the Iraq conflict since its inception five years ago.

Originally called Decoration Day, Memorial Day was first observed on a national scale in May 1868, when flowers were placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington Cemetery on the orders of Gen. John Logan, according to www.memorial day.org.

Prior to this, many individual towns throughout the country held their own “days of observances” honoring their war dead, which may have ultimately led up to Logan's order.

More than 100 years later, through the National Holiday Act of 1971, Congress made Memorial Day a federal holiday to be celebrated annually on the last Monday in May.

Memorial Day ceremonies were also held Monday throughout the Central Coast at Guadalupe Cemetery, Pine Grove Cemetery in Orcutt, Pismo Beach Pier, Arroyo Grande Cemetery, the Santa Maria Elks/Unocal Event Center, the Evergreen Memorial Cemetery in Lompoc, Solvang Park and Riverpark in Lompoc, among others.

After the Santa Maria Cemetery ceremony, Valler recounted his military days, the friends he lost, and the three days he spent as a captive of the Japanese military before distracting a guard and escaping.

“(The Japanese) told me I couldn't escape. My mother told me we don't have (the word ‘can't') in our language,” he said with a laugh.

At the other side of the cemetery from Valler were Patti and Bruce Lewis with their granddaughter, Breanna Ford, 9, who recently became the 11th generation of her family to join the Children of the American Revolution.

“We wanted (Breanna) to get an understanding of what Memorial Day is all about,” Patti Lewis said.

Breanna, dressed all in red, white and blue, stood next to her grandparents, happily waving an American flag.

When asked what she had learned, the youngster replied “a lot.”

Bruce Lewis said days like Memorial Day are important to teaching children what this country is all about.

“They don't have a past or history. This is the only way we're going to pass it on,” he said.

Natalie Ragus can be reached at 347-4580 or nragus@santamariatimes.com.

May 27, 2008