VETS HONOR FRIENDS WHO DIED IN WAR
VIETNAM: LIFELONG BUDDIES PLAYED AT LAKEWOOD PARK WHERE MEMORIAL IS NOW

By David Rogers

LAKEWOOD, CA--Countless boys had fought imaginary battles atop the plane, a Korean War fighter jet that was donated to the city by a veterans' group and placed near a playground at Del Valle Park.
Years later, many of those boys would be sent to fight for their country in Vietnam, where their old childhood games would stand in stark contrast to the horrors they experienced on the battlefields of an all-too-real war.

On Sunday, those Lakewood men who died on the battlefields were remembered by their old playground buddies and schoolmates at Del Valle Park, near the same airplane that was later put atop a perch and turned into the city's Vietnam War memorial. The remembrance was part of the annual All-Class Reunion/Picnic for Lakewood High School alumni at the park, and drew some 300 people.

The city's 50th anniversary made it important to remember the sacrifices of the war dead, and the Iraq war has also brought the issue more into focus, said Dennis Lander, a Vietnam veteran and a member of Lakewood's Class of 1966 who helped organize Sunday's memorial. Although the event drew several generations of Lakewood alumni, it focused on those who came of age during the Vietnam War era.

"It was very special, because today was the first time that members of our generation got together over here to honor those men at that memorial,' he said. "It was great to have people give recognition.'

A poem that Lander wrote about his childhood friends who went to Vietnam, "The Boys of Del Valle Park,' was read by David Sims, whose introduction to the poem has been circulated on the Internet. A plaque with an inscription of the poem was placed on the memorial in 1992, near the names of 32 Lakewood residents and students who died in Vietnam. Lander said the poem was the first he'd written, and came out as a stream of consciousness on the back of a paper bag about 18 years ago.

"The boys whose names are on the plaque are the same boys who played on this airplane when it was on the ground. That struck me,' Sims said.

The 32 names on the memorial were read aloud, along with 12 more names that were discovered during the preparation for the ceremony. They will be added to the memorial later, Lander said.

Mike Moffett, a member of Lakewood's Class of 1964 who suffered several injuries during the war, said he was deeply touched to see his fellow servicemen honored at the ceremony.

"I loved every second of it,' he said. "We don't want to forget it.'

Ryan Vanderhook, a member of Lakewood's Class of 1966, said the ceremony brought back a memory from 1992, when he went to the Wall of Names at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial to find the name of an old classmate while chaperoning a class of eighth graders to Washington, D.C. Finding Marc Brown's name again at the Lakewood memorial also brought back his memory of telling those students about the value of friendship.

"I told those kids what it was like to loose friends in war,' he said. "That's what Marc Brown was to me a good friend.'