In Honor of Service Past : Thousands Pay Homage to U.S. Veterans

Sarah Mounsey stared at the memorial plaque at her feet and began to cry.

“That’s my son’s name there, but I still don’t understand why,” she said. “If he were here right now he’d say, ‘Why all this for me?’ And then he’d laugh. He always laughed.”

Culver City Park was touched with fond laughter and sad tears Friday as more than 100 people--including Rep. Julian C. Dixon (D-Los Angeles), representatives of the United States military and French veterans--honored Erik Scott Mounsey, pilot of a Black Hawk helicopter shot down April 14 over Iraq.

The gathering in Culver City was one of scores in Southern California as thousands of Americans turned out nationwide to honor those who served--and gave their lives--in military service.

Mounsey was one of those who did both.

He was one of 26 people--11 of them foreign officers--who died when an American F-15 fighter pilot shot down two U.S. Army helicopters in the mistaken belief that the aircraft were Russian-built Hind helicopters flown by the Iraqi military.

Though a missing-man formation and 21-gun salute in Culver City seemed a fitting tribute to Mounsey and his comrades, that outpouring from the American military Establishment--highly unusual for such a small, local event--tinged the day with irony.

Despite charging the fighter pilot with negligent homicide, military officials in Washington have brushed aside the pleas of Mounsey’s widow to increase her spousal death benefits and award Purple Hearts to the soldiers who died in the Black Hawk crashes.

For most of those honored Friday, the tributes were given without reservation.

Among those remembered in other ceremonies were the Buffalo Soldiers of the Wild West and the Tuskegee Airmen of World War II--two of this nation’s most distinguished black fighting units.

The Pasadena Chamber of Commerce and Civil Assn. paid homage to both groups with a color-guard military ceremony, complete with a horse cavalry demonstration and a missing-man formation flyover.

The 19th-Century cavalry soldiers are long gone by now, but many of the fighter pilots survive.

Former fighter-escort pilot Carl Fountain, 72, remembers the racial segregation that kept him and his fellows from serving in regular units:

“At that time, people did not think a black man had the ability to power an aircraft,” he said.

The “noble experiment”--during which the squadrons they escorted never lost a single bomber--”proved that the black man is just as capable as any other person,” Fountain said.

In Buena Park, somber veterans found the names of lost comrades on a replica of the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington.

“I miss them a lot,” said Daniel Valesquez, fighting back tears as he read the names of five of his friends. “It just hits me. I’m here and they’re not.”

“It’s hard for an old vet,” said Charlotte Best, who served in the Korean War, as she gazed at the movable replica parked outside Knott’s Berry Farm. “Everybody who comes here has somebody here.”

At Forest Lawn Memorial-Park in the Hollywood Hills, about 300 veterans gathered to the patriotic strains of a high school marching band and the echoing volleys of a rifle salute.

Compared to years past, when more than 1,000 showed up on Veterans Day, it was a relatively poor turnout.

“We’ve got a younger generation now that doesn’t remember all this stuff,” said World War II veteran James Brickley. “They just shove it off as another holiday, another day off from work.

Art Ocampo, another World War II veteran who spent Friday morning at Forest Lawn, remembers.

He remembers Guam--what it looked like, what it smelled like, who was around. But mostly, he remembers Don Jones. And he remembers Jones’ family in Texas, when he went to see them afterward. How they cried.

“He died right in front of us,” caught in an ambush when a group of soldiers went out looking for souvenirs, Ocampo said.

Another visitor at Forest Lawn, Clarence Betler, was born 100 years ago in May, into a nation beginning to heal from the nightmare of the Civil War.

By the time he was called to serve in World War I, the United States already had won Puerto Rico from Spain in the Spanish-American War, and his century of life has included four wars more.

“All these wars don’t do any good,” he said Friday. “They still have wars, and I don’t know why.”

Times staff writers Sharon Bernstein and Ching-Ching Ni contributed to this story.

More on Veterans Day: Times on Demand is offering a reproduction of the front page from Nov. 11, 1918, Armistice Day, which is now celebrated as Veterans Day. To order, call 808-8463 and press *8630. 11 x 14, $25; 18 x 24, $30.

Details on Times electronic services, A8.