A day to remember the fallen

With Memorial Day set for next week, memories swell up for anyone who spent time in the ranks — and anyone who loved someone who served and never got to come home.

There is nothing wrong with barbecues, enjoying some time outdoors, taking advantage of an advertised sale or heading out for the beach. That is something we call freedom.

But Memorial Day’s real meaning is for remembering the fallen from our many wars. Veterans Day in November honors the living veterans. This last day of May is for remembering the ones who miss out on all the good stuff that comes with a three-day weekend.

I remember Allan Kendall Walker, a man I never met, but who, with the aid of his family and others, I have come to know in the 18 years since his death in Iraq. At 28, he was the oldest Marine killed in an April 2004 insurgent ambush in Ramadi, Iraq, known as “The Ambush of Echo 2/4.” A dozen Marines were killed that day, which was the worst of the Iraq war up to that date.

I remember Staff Sgt. Walker because he was the first American from the Antelope Valley killed in Iraq. I was flying into Baghdad, my feet folded under the canvas bench seat to keep my boot soles from touching the steel casket lashed to center spar of the C-130 Hercules transport we rode in.

“We have human remains on board,” the Air Force load master said. “Show some respect.”

Likely, our mortal cargo was one of the Marines killed a day or two before. In the dim red light of the cavernous aircraft, we honored the load master’s command. We landed in pre-dawn darkness at the former Saddam Hussein International Airport. As we landed with a hard-braking sudden stop, the airport was already under a concerted militia assault that would last through the day and came to be known as “The Good Friday Attack.”

The ambush that killed Walker and nine others happened a couple of days earlier. I would return from Baghdad just in time to attend the Marine’s funeral in Lancaster.

Walker graduated from Highland High School where a flag pole out front is dedicated in his name. At school, he affected the Punk Rocker look, mohawk haircut and Doc Marten boots. He played football, but excelled at poetry, with a fondness for poets of his Irish heritage, his favorite, Yeats.

He was a rebel who found his cause in the Marine Corps. Liking all things Irish, he included a fondness for Guinness stout. As a Marine, he shed his Punk Rock trappings and became a drill instructor, one of the dread masters of what Thucydides the Athenian general, called “The hardest school.”

In Marine boot camp, Walker’s nickname as a DI was “The Beast.” It was a term of respect.

“He was tough on us,” J.D. Kennedy, one of his “boot” Marines recalled. Just as quickly, he added, “I am probably alive today because of what he taught us.”

Eleven years ago, Kennedy, then a congressman’s aide, escorted the Marine Corps Recruit Depot dedication of a building named for Walker, where the war wounded do physical therapy and work out in a state-of-the-art gym, with everything they have after their war ends.

Walker’s parents, Ken and Nancy, were at the dedication, with Walker’s stepmom PJ Walker. A building named in your memory is a memorial and that is what Memorial Day is about.

In Palmdale, at Pelona Vista Park, this Memorial Day, there is at least one American flag with Walker’s name on it.