NEVER FORGET

WASILLA — “Sir, I’ll mark that bunker.”

Those were among the final words the U.S. Army captain heard from the young private more than three decades ago while fighting in Vietnam. The private had volunteered to mark North Vietnamese bunkers so U.S. planes could target them. He ran down and then back up a ravine to the enemy camp and ignited the marker, which bellowed out yellow smoke. Along with marking the camp for his air support, the smoke also alerted the North Vietnamese to the private’s location and he was killed.

That captain was Charlie Huggins, now a state senator and a keynote speaker Monday at the AMVETS Post 11 Memorial Day ceremony at the Valley’s Veterans Wall of Honor. His voice breaking with emotion, Huggins said the private’s words will always remind him of the sacrifice those in military service make to preserve America’s freedom.

“Some of us in our service to our country saw somebody be memorialized,” Huggins said. For him, that person was the private. “We could not get the air strikes in, so this young private had yellow smoke and runs down the hill and dies. ‘Sir, I’ll mark that bunker,’ he said to me.”

Memorial Day is an emotional time for many veterans, including Huggins, who also acknowledged the sacrifices military families make so soldiers can serve.

Mothers and fathers steady themselves for the chance that a “military vehicle pulls up to your house to tell you your loved one is dead or wounded,” Huggins said. “That’s what this country is about.”

Huggins was among the more than 1,000 people who gathered at the wall to mark Memorial Day in the Valley. State Rep. Carl Gatto said he woke up in the morning knowing he enjoys unprecedented freedom and liberty.

“This liberty has been earned (and) is a liberty that must be protected,” Gatto said. “Some have given until there was no more to give.”

Bob Moore of the Veteran Trailriders of Alaska said the 1,308,000 U.S. men and women who have died while in military service are an example of “a complete and absolute denial of self.”

Some of the Valley’s younger generation were at the Wall of Honor, something Huggins noted as a good sign today’s children are being raised with strong, patriotic values. Huggins’ first memory of Memorial Day comes from when he was 8 or 10 years old. His father took him to remember two people close to the family who died in World War II. The first was an uncle, who died at Midway in the Pacific. The other was a neighbor, who died during the Bataan Death March.

“The fact that you’re here is significant,” he told the youngsters. “It’s a tribute to your patriotism.”

Wasilla police officer Jentry Crain served in Iraq in 2003 and watched as five members of his Army explosives ordinance disposal unit were killed. “I think about those guys and the one woman today.”

With many attending the ceremony to remember a family member or friend, Moore asked everyone to consider what the state of freedom would be without the more than two centuries of sacrifice by U.S. soldiers.

“Think of how the world would be without the veterans of the United States of America,” he said.

Contact Greg Johnson at greg.johnson@frontiersman.com or 352-2269.