Friday, Nov. 12, 2004 | 11:04 a.m.
The newest monument unveiled Thursday at the Southern Nevada Veterans Cemetery in Boulder City speaks volumes about what Veterans Day is about -- all veterans: past, present and future.
"To the men and women veterans of Nevada who proudly served," are the words etched on the four-foot-by-three-foot gray granite monument dedicated during Veterans Day ceremonies by its sponsor, the Disabled American Veterans Chapter 34-0 of North Las Vegas.
While a number of monuments at the site honor the veterans of the particular group that paid for their installation, the DAV chose to honor all veterans -- disabled or not, alive or dead, those of the past and those still serving in the Iraqi War and even those who will serve in conflicts not yet begun.
"I remember coming home from the Korean War and Vietnam War to little or no reception, and I just don't want to see that happen to the young men and women who will come home from Iraq as veterans," said DAV member Lou Howard, who organized the fundraising efforts to create the $3,000 stone marker.
"We wanted to have a place where no veteran will be forgotten."
Howard, who was awarded the Purple Heart for being wounded in Vietnam, said nearly two-thirds of the money raised came from DAV member donations. Enough was raised, he said, to also plant a tree and install a bench in the monument circle "so that people can sit and reflect on what this is all about."
DAV Chapter 34-0 Commander Gabriel Rodriguez said a lasting monument to all veterans is important because he fears the war in Iraq could go on for years, creating a large number of future veterans.
"I believe our troops are going to be over there (Iraq) a long time just like the British were," Rodriguez said, referring to prolonged 20th century conflicts that included the infamous Mesopotamia campaign of 1914-15 that killed or wounded 23,000 British troops.
"We tend not to learn from history so we wanted something here to remind those veterans that we were thinking of them even while they were fighting."
The monument dedication at the cemetery that is the final resting place of more than 16,000 veterans followed a 45-minute afternoon service at the veterans cemetery chapel, capping a busy Veterans Day.
Other events around the valley included the gathering of thousands along Fourth Street in downtown Las Vegas to watch a parade that paid tribute to veterans and troops deployed overseas and a celebration at the Gobel-Lowden Veterans Museum near Desert Inn Road and Maryland Parkway that specifically honored veterans of Vietnam and Iraq.
Reps. Jon Porter, R-Nev., and James Gibbons, R-Nev., gave brief speeches at the cemetery chapel telling a crowd of about 300 -- about a dozen of whom were aging and in motorized wheelchairs -- that while the efforts of warriors often are taken for granted, they nevertheless are appreciated.
Porter told the audience about his trip to Iraq last summer where in a Baghdad hospital he met an Iraqi official who had survived a terrorist bombing. The man, Porter said, told him how terrorists had killed one of his sons a month earlier and severed the arm of another of his sons two weeks earlier.
The Iraqi man, who Porter said was attacked simply for wanting to bring freedom and democracy to his country, told Porter that while he wanted American troops to one day leave Iraq he nevertheless was grateful to them for what they had done to bring freedom to his long-oppressed people.
Porter also spoke of his concern for Boulder City soldier Chad Richner currently fighting "in the trenches of Fallujah." He said Americans "deeply, deeply appreciate" what today's troops and the millions of veterans before them have done to preserve our freedom.
Gibbons, a veteran who served in two wars, said on Veterans Day "we come together to celebrate the memories and sacrifices (of our military) that we all take for granted too many times.
"Every day of the year is Veterans Day," he said, "not just Nov. 11."
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