Veterans gone, but never forgotten

YAKIMA, Wash. -- Led by a color guard, Marines and soldiers carrying banners that recognized their fallen comrades marched with their eyes straight ahead at the front of Wednesday's annual Veterans Day parade in Yakima.

Army Sgt. Jose Honrado didn't find out until minutes before the column stepped off that he was carrying the banner of Sgt. 1st Class Larry Morrison, a fellow medic.

"That made it all the more fulfilling," Honrado said.

Morrison, who lived in Terrace Heights, was called up from the inactive reserves for the war in Iraq. He had finished his active-duty career as the noncommissioned officer in charge of the base clinic at the Yakima Training Center.

Morrison was killed in September 2005 when an enemy bomb exploded near his Humvee while he was on patrol with a Marine Corps unit.

Honrado is assigned as a flight medic for the training center's Army Air Ambulance Detachment.

He said the greater Yakima area's support for the military goes beyond attending the parade -- businesses and landlords sometimes offer discounts for those in uniform, for example.

"It's definitely a privilege to be here in Yakima and serve the community," said Honrado, a Tacoma native who was deployed to Iraq with a Stryker brigade from Fort Lewis.

In the Marine ranks, Navy corpsman Aaron Ramirez carried the banner honoring Cpl. Dustin Sides, the first of 10 service members killed in Iraq with ties to the Yakima Valley.

Corpsmen serve alongside Marines to provide emergency medical care on the battlefield. Ramirez is now part of the inspector-instructor staff for Bravo Company of the 4th Tank Battalion in Yakima. He served in Iraq in 2006.

Ramirez said Sides was the same as all Marines, who know that they may have to die to protect their country and their fellow Marines.

"When the call came for him to answer, he answered it with open arms," said Ramirez, who has had contact with the Sides family since being assigned to Yakima in 2007.

A crowd estimated by police at between 3,000 and 4,000 -- significantly larger than in some recent years -- lined Yakima Avenue from Naches Avenue to Sixth Avenue to watch the banners and other parade entries pass by.

Beryl Thomas of Yakima, a communications sergeant in the Army Air Corps during World War, rode in the parade in a friend's 1947 Willys jeep. He wore his old uniform, which he can still wear as long as he doesn't worry about the buttons.

He said people sometimes thank him for his service.

"I appreciate that," he said.

Sally Pierone of Terrace Heights said she has regularly attended the parade since moving to Yakima six years ago. This year, she watched her son, Jonathan, march as part of the Junior ROTC unit at East Valley High School.

A sophomore, he plans to enter the Army when he turns 18. She said she's ready to see him in uniform.

"They're why we have America, and it's important to support them," she said.

There was a similar scene in Prosser as hundreds of spectators lined the downtown streets to watch the parade, waving flags and holding signs of support.

The fifth annual parade featured 22 entries, about twice as many as last year, said organizer Deb Brumley.

Led by the color guard of Lower Valley VFW posts, the procession halted twice along the route -- once in front of the True Value hardware store and once at the intersection of Sixth Street and Meade Avenue -- for
21-gun salutes and renditions of taps, played by Pete Felicijan on his trumpet.

Though not a veteran himself, Felicijan, 45, began serving as the honorary bugler for Lower Valley VFW posts in honor of his late father, Al Felicijan, an Army veteran who died about 10 years ago.

"That's my way of giving back," he said.

Don and Judy White, both 60, of Sunnyside watched the parade from the bed of their Ford pickup parked on Meade Avenue.

Don, a Marine veteran, stood up and saluted the color guard and several Boy Scout troops as they walked by. Don, who sometimes rides his Harley Davidson motorcycle in parades, says he admires the work of Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts.

"I was in every one of them when I was a kid," he said.

* Ross Courtney contributed to this report.

* Mark Morey can be reached at 509-577-7671 or mmorey@yakimaherald.com.