As 15 Patriot Guard Riders lined up on each side of the escalator at Sacramento International Airport, an arriving passenger headed for the escalator, saw the line and immediately stepped aside.

The other arriving passengers followed his course, leaving the escalator empty, until a woman with big blonde hair showed up.

She stepped onto the escalator smiling and thanked everyone for greeting her. The Guard Riders had not noticed as she stepped off the escalator, she stayed with group. The long awaited soldier finally appeared and proceeded down the escalator, while shaking hands and being cheered by Guard members. As he stepped off the escalator the woman with the big blonde hair stepped forward, threw her arms around him and said, “Welcome home.”

Mike Doyle, a former sailor who served in the Navy during the Vietnam War and a member of the Patriot Guard Riders for two and a half years, said that is one of his favorite stories.

“The thrill of seeing a soldier come down the escalator of an airport and back to the arms of loved ones is just absolutely incredible,” Doyle said. “If a family invites us to come, how can we not.”

American Legion connection

Patriot Guards began in Westboro, Kansas in August 2005, when a group from the American Legion Riders Chapter 136 was appalled to hear that a group of misguided religious zealots were protesting the Iraqi war at soldiers’ funerals. Their chapter established a mission statement requiring the Guards receive permission from the families to attend the funerals and to include the local police. On Oct. 18, 2005, the Patriot Guard name was established.

There for the family

Doyle said the Guards simply form a flag line and quietly stand in front of the protesters, blocking them from the family and funeral. They are not there to confront anyone.

“Funerals are extremely sad and emotional,” Doyle said. “But it is also such a point of pride to be able to honor these people, particularly those who have given the ultimate sacrifice.

When the Guard is invited to attend the funeral of a soldier, there are anywhere from 40 to over 100 riders showing up. Doyle said at a recent funeral in Anderson, Calif., hundreds of riders showed up to honor the local sailor who had been killed. There are close to 400 Guard members in the Sacramento region.

It’s about R-E-S-P-E-C-T

The Patriot Guards mission statement establishes that the one thing members have in common (besides riding motorcycles), is an unwavering respect for those who risk their lives for America’s freedom and security.

Although a motorcycle group started the organization, Doyle wants people to know that riding a motorcycle is not a requirement to be a member of the Patriot Guard. There are no dues or meetings and it is not required to have served in the military. The only requirement is that respect and honor are shown to the soldiers and their families.

Working with families

There is no solicitation by the Patriot Guards. If a family request the presence of the Guard at a funeral or greeting the returning soldier at the airport, a ride captain from the Guard meets with the family to gather necessary information. The ride captain adds this information to the Guard website and sends out a notice to Guard members via a mailing list. There is no requirement that a Guard member must show up at an event. Occasionally the returning soldier is escorted home with flags attached to motorcycles and cars. Doyle said it is quite a sight to see.

All service members honored

Soldiers are amazed when they realize total strangers are waiting to greet them. And, Doyle added, if other military service members show up they don’t know about, they receive the same greeting.

For example, right before Christmas, the Guard had been invited to greet one soldier at the airport. As the Guard members gladly stood at the escalator waiting for this one soldier, streams of military service members started coming down the escalator and they ended up greeting 44 returning soldiers.

The capitol region makes a special welcome home dog tag for returning soldiers. The Guard buys the tags and a local printing company donates the engraving on the tags.

When soldiers are greeted at the airport, they receive a card and the dog tag.

Tell a friend

Doyle said he wants to get the word out to all military families about what the Patriot Guard Riders do. He said they greet soldiers returning home from anywhere, even those who just get home from boot camp.

The national Website for the Patriot Guard Riders is www.patriotguard.org. There is information on the site so families across the nation can reach the Guard.

“Bottom line,” Doyle said. “These soldiers are sacrificing their lives for their country.”

Residents, staff and some special guests celebrated Veterans Day at Merrill Gardens Retirement Community on Nov. 11.

In attendance were some 25 veterans (including the oldest WAVE in the nation), a recruiter for the Navy, new Navy recruits and members of AlphaOne Ambulance Medical Services. All enjoyed a special meal together and music by Breakthrough, a bluegrass fusion group.

“This is a big day for our residents,” said Courtney Siegel, Merrill Gardens general manager.

The day was especially meaningful to Evelyn Lackey. At 101, Lackey is sharp as a tack and every bit as patriotic as she was when she became one of the first women to enlist in the Navy’s “Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service” (WAVES) at the dawn of World War II.

“My dad was in the Navy. After (the Japanese attack on) Pearl Harbor, I left a good job to join the WAVES,” the retired yeoman said. “I was one of the very first WAVES. Back then, women were only allowed to do mostly administrative things. Today, women do everything.”

Lt. Col. Tom Licursi (retired) is heading a new veterans’ group at Merrill Gardens.

“The purpose of the group is to build friendships and reminisce,” he said. “Especially the older guys.”

Licursi went into the Army in October, 1941 (“They drafted me!” he said). After completing Basic Training at Fort Dixon in New Jersey, he was sent to Camp Croft in South Carolina. In April, 1942, he shipped out to Ireland with the 34th Infantry – one of the first American units to be sent to Europe.

“In December, 1942 I was sent back to the states for Officers Training School at Fort Benning,” Licursi said. “Then I was off to Camp Adair in Corvallis, Ore. And then to the Pacific Theater.”

Licursi served in Japan on occupation duty shortly after the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

“The minute the war ended, they were as docile as could be,” he said.

One concern Licursi has is how his generation has come to be portrayed. He disagrees with recent media coverage.

“There’s been a tendency lately to classify as ‘heroes’ anybody who served in World War II,” he said. “There were over 10 million of us under arms. We couldn’t ALL be heroes. It was a different attitude then. There was a job to be done. And we did it. No matter what, everybody was focused on one aim.”

Tom Arjil, president and CEO of AlphaOne, said that recognizing the efforts of all veterans is important.

“We want to support not only the senior community, but also the veterans,” Arjil said. “They paved the way for the generations to come for freedom.”

I graduated from Sacramento High School on June 11, 1964. Life’s possibilities seemed limitless. I enrolled for two summer classes at Sacramento City College the next week. My adult life had begun in earnest. Then something happened that summer which changed my life and the lives of all the Janey Way gang forever.

On Aug. 2, 1964, three North Vietnamese torpedo boats engaged the destroyer USS Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin off the coast of Vietnam. The Maddox sustained some moderate damage. The story made the network news that night. Two days later another attack supposedly occurred on the same ship. Then, the next day, Aug. 7, the U.S. Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution which authorized the President to do whatever necessary to assist the government of South Vietnam. This didn’t seem like such a big deal to us.

Little did we know.

That fall, my friend Mike Gilson joined the U.S. Marines and went off to train at Camp Pendleton in Southern California. After eight months of training, Mike came home on leave at the beginning of summer, 1965. He swam with us at the river, went to movies and generally had a great time. After his leave, Mike shipped out for Vietnam.

We would never see Mike again.

He lost his life in a fire fight in February of the next year. When that happened, we grieved and also realized how serious the war in Vietnam was. More Janey Way kids would soon follow Mike into battle.

Jim Ducray volunteered for the Army in late 1966. He trained at Fort Ord and then received his orders for Vietnam. As he prepared to leave, his older brother Bill told him, “when you get there, tell them you can type.”

Of course, Jim couldn’t type, but when he arrived in Vietnam, he set out in search of the administrative company. He found an officer there and asked if they needed a typist. Fortunately, the officer said they did, and Jim got reassigned from his infantry unit to the typing pool.  Jim did most of his Vietnam service behind the lines and returned home unscathed.

Dick Kinzel wasn’t as lucky. He was drafted in 1967 and soon followed Jim over to Vietnam. Dick served in an artillery battery which supported the infantrymen on maneuvers in the field.  He lived through the infamous Tet Offensive of 1968 when the North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong attacked U.S. bases throughout South Vietnam. It was a horrible battle and many U.S. lives were lost.

Dick told me, “It got so bad, we lowered our cannons to ground level and fired them directly at oncoming Vietnamese attackers. I was lucky to survive.”

Some of his buddies were not so lucky. Fortunately, Dick returned home in 1968.

That year my brother Terry volunteered for the U.S. Army, and soon after our neighbor Roger Thomsen received his draft notice.

Terry trained as a military policeman and shipped out to serve in Saigon.

Roger was not so lucky. He trained as an infantryman and when he reached Vietnam in mid-1969, shipped directly out to the field. Three months later he sustained serious wounds in a fire fight.

When Terry heard of Roger’s condition, he visited Roger at the hospital. There, he arranged for Roger to call his parents back home and the whole neighborhood breathed a sigh of relief. The Army soon sent Roger home to recuperate, ending his assignment to Vietnam.

Meanwhile, I received my draft notice, in April of 1969. As I was training at Fort Lewis, Washington, my brother shipped out for Vietnam. So when I finished my training, in accordance with U.S. military policy, the Army could not station me in the same combat zone with my brother.

Consequently, I received my orders to serve in West Germany along with the 80,000 other U.S. soldiers serving there. I spent the rest of my two-year army career as a member of the 510th Ordinance Battalion in Southern Germany. There I learned how to destroy my ordinance base, using C-4 plastic explosive and detonating cord in the event of a Russian attack on our base. Fortunately, that never happened. I returned home to the U.S. in the fall of 1971.

When I returned home, Sacramento seemed a much different place. Its borders stretched out to Rancho Cordova on the east, to near Elk Grove on the south and toward Roseville on the north.

Janey Way had changed too. Most of the kids of my generation had moved out of the neighborhood. I would soon follow. By this time, the war in Vietnam was winding down. Others like Denis and John Tomassetti would get the call, but they too soon returned home uninjured.

The war had changed us all.

We had to grow up quickly. We had all served our county honorably. After all was said and done, we had lost a dear friend, others sustained life-changing injuries, both physical and mental, and on Janey Way life would never be the same again.

One of the Carmichael Recreation and Park District’s most unique parks, Patriots Park, will add one more name to its Wall of Honor during a special ceremony on Saturday, Nov. 6 at 10 a.m.

Although the park is only three years old, many who are familiar with this 3.68-acre neighborhood park know that it is far from an ordinary recreation and leisure spot.

At the center of the park sits a 20-foot-long by 3-foot-tall by 3-foot-wide concrete and stone wall with much more significance than its durable materials.

Recognized as the Wall of Honor, the wall is so significant, in fact, that when the park was dedicated on Nov. 15, 2008, an entirely separate dedication was held on the same day to present the Wall of Honor and its first inductees to the public.

The park, which is located just east of the Carmichael-Fair Oaks border at 6827 Palm Avenue, off Dewey Drive, features the latest in park designs with walking paths, a playground, a picnic area, a basketball court and a butterfly garden.

But it is the Wall of Honor, which is the park’s most treasured feature.

The wall features 11 plaques with the names of local heroes, who gave their lives serving their country or community.

The Nov. 6 ceremony will honor former Navy pilot, Lt. j.g. David A. Warne, who was lost at sea at the age of 27 on Jan. 12, 1991 during a nighttime training mission over the Mediterranean Sea.

Tracy Kerth, recreation services manager of the Carmichael Recreation and Park District, explained the background of the creation of the Wall of Honor.

“We were trying to name the park and the community came forward and they said, ‘Well, how about we name it after this young man (the late Army Sgt. Ronald L. Coffelt), who grew up in the area and his family still lives here.’ But then we started thinking about all of our heroes. So, then we thought about naming (the park) Patriots Park and having a Wall of Honor and that would include not only military people, but it would include firefighters and police and CHP and Sheriffs and civilians who died in the line of duty.”

With the creation of the wall, such local heroes who resided, worked in or served the community within the park district boundaries could be honored as part of this lasting monument.

This honor is available to those who showed acts of courage beginning as early as 1945, when the district was established.

Nominations for candidates for the Wall of Honor are accepted until July 31 every year.

Official nomination forms are available through the district’s Web site www.carmichaelpark.com or by calling (916) 485-5322 to arrange for a form to be mailed via the United States Postal Service.

The first inductees

The first inductees to have their names placed on plaques and displayed on the Wall of Honor were:: As previously mentioned, Coffelt was the inspiration for the Wall of Honor.

Army Sgt. Ronald L. Coffelt

Raised within walking distance from the park, Coffelt, a graduate of Del Campo High School, died on July 19, 2007 from wounds that he suffered as a result of a bomb that exploded near him in Baghdad.

Army Spc. Raymond Nigel Spencer, Jr.: Spencer, who was raised in Carmichael and excelled in hockey during his youth, was killed less than a month prior to Coffelt’s death when insurgents attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device and small arms fire.

Sheriff Deputies Kevin Patrick Blount and Joseph Kievernagel: Blount and Kievernagel, who worked as partners in the North Division serving Carmichael, lost their lives during a burglary call on July 15, 2005, when the engine of the helicopter they were flying failed and the helicopter crashed.

CHP Officer Ronald Eugene Davis: Following his graduation from the California Highway Patrol academy, Davis moved his family from Carmichael to Barstow.

Davis died at the age of 25 when he was driving about 100 miles per hour while en route to a traffic accident.

When a pair of motorists failed to heed his siren, Davis, in order to avoid a collision, died when he drove off the highway into the desert.

Army 1^st Lt. Robert Scott Byrnes: A graduate of La Sierra High School, Byrnes, a former lifeguard and swimming instructor at Carmichael Park, lost his life in Vietnam.

Firefighter Dean Wesley Rhoades: An El Camino High School graduate, Rhoades died shortly after fighting a house fire in Carmichael on Jan. 6, 1981.

The second inductees

Last year, plaques for the following inductees were also added to the wall:

Army Spc. James Edward Schlottman: An El Camino High School graduate, Schlottman was killed by a booby trap while on patrol in Vietnam on Aug. 22, 1967.

Sgt. Brian E. Dunlap: A graduate of Del Campo High School, Dunlap was killed at the age of 38 on Sept. 24, 2005, when a roadside bomb exploded during his patrol in northern Baghdad.

Sgt. Larry Morford: The courage of Morford is recognized in the book, “The Least Beastly,” by Bernard “Burn” Loeffke.

Within a memorial tribute to Morford in this book, it is explained that despite being a young man who did not believe in war as a method of resolving disputes, Morford felt that he could not stay at home knowing that other young men were fighting for his country.

On Feb. 12, 1970, Morford, a graduate of La Sierra High School, was killed at the age of 21 in Vietnam while serving in his patrol just a few days prior to when he was scheduled to return home.

Cpt. Olin E. Gilbert, Jr.: While flying an F-106 in a training mission at Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida on June 11, 1968, Gilbert was met with the plane’s sudden mechanical difficulties.

Instead of parachuting to safety, Gilbert, a Vietnam veteran, piloted the plane out to sea and away from coastline homes in Port St. Joe, Fla.

This act of heroism cost Gilbert his life, but in turn saved the lives of many other people.

A special honor for a local heroUnlike the previous two Wall of Honor ceremonies, the upcoming Nov. 6 ceremony will honor only one inductee.

This year’s inductee, David A. Warne, formerly resided in Fair Oaks and graduated from Sacramento State University in 1985 with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering.

David, who enjoyed skiing and fishing and briefly worked at Aerojet prior to entering active duty in the Navy in 1987, completed his pilot training two years later and was assigned as an F/A-18 pilot.

Although David has a marker in the Arlington National Cemetery, since his body was never recovered after he was lost at sea, it was not possible for his remains to be buried in a local cemetery.

Because of this fact, David’s family and some of his closest friends, who will be attending the event, are additionally appreciative that David will have his name officially placed on the Wall of Honor.

David’s mother, Betty Warne, recently expressed her appreciation that her son will have a local memorial to honor him.

“We don’t have the grave marker here in the area for him, so that’s really nice to have (David’s name on the Wall of Honor) here in this area,” Betty said.

David’s father, Evans Warne, a retired Air Force colonel, pilot and Vietnam veteran, also expressed his appreciation that his son’s name will be placed on the wall.

“(Having David honored on the wall) means an awful lot to me,” Evans said. “It means that somebody is recognizing his service and that whoever goes to that park will realize what a sacrifice he made and recognize what he did.”

Lee Ann Yarber, administrative analyst of the park district, said that the ceremony, which will also be attended by park district advisory board members and Sacramento County District 3 Supervisor Susan Peters, is a great opportunity for the community to show appreciation for David, as well as other heroes of the Wall of Honor.

“We absolutely invite all the community to come out – anybody who ever lost a loved one or anybody who wants to pay honor to the family of the fallen hero,” Yarber said. “It’s just a nice ceremony, so come on out and honor our local heroes.”