Community members honor fallen soldiers with “Memorial Day Walk”
Saturday morning, over 70 community members from the Imperial Valley honored those who made the ultimate sacrifice when they answered the call of duty in the 6th annual ” Memorial Day Walk. ”
The 8-mile walk from Westmoreland to Brawley began 6 years ago when veteran Ernie Mariscal wanted to do more to remember for fallen soldiers.
Mariscal said, ” Not good enough for me. So I went home got my flag and I started walking. And then people started stopping me you know like ‘what are you doing?’ and I was like ‘well I’m honoring our fallen’. So after that, they were like ‘well when you do it again please let us know.’
Lizette Hendry , whose brother Charlie participated in the walk numerous times, suffered from PTSD and took his life two years ago. Today she walked to honor him.
Hendry said, ” And I just want to keep his memory alive because he tried to do a lot of stuff for veterans as well when he was alive even though he was going through his stuff. It was really important to him now it’s absolutely one of the most important things to me also . ”
For veteran Miguel Espinoza, the event is also an opportunity for veterans to open up to one another and share war stories.
Espinoza said, ” Just being out here with the community. You know it’s a sense of community. And it’s just sharing the some of the things that we’ve done. You know and we talk about the places we’ve been. ”
Veteran Rudy Martinez hopes that the event continues to grow.
” I think the word is coming out more for us to unite. A lot of people have some type of member in the service. And they want to honor them. So I think you’ll see more and more people come out, ” said Martinez.
For resident Noemi Flores, it’s become a new family tradition.
Flores said, ” You know it means a lot to me. That what they fought for our freedom so, therefore, I brought all four of my kids this time my mom, my best friend and family that came from out of town from Texas are also with me. ”
Mariscal said it’s important to continue honoring the fallen, so they’ll never be forgotten.
Mariscal added, ” In my unit alone, I was in Iraq, we lost 7 guys. And you know ever since that I always said to myself, I’m going to live that a 100 percent. You know for what they sacrifice it’s never going to be for nothing. ”
