Honoring soldiers

MIDLAND Toni Bustillos stood with her eyes closed Monday morning listening and registering the words to the National Anthem.

With each verse, her eyebrows seemed to twitch upward and a smile grew across her serene face.

The 50-year-old mouthed the words at times, and each one was coming from the heart.

Bustillos, along with her sister, Ana Natividad, were two of several hundred visitors to the Commemorative Air Force on Monday as part of a Memorial Day ceremony.

"We're just so grateful to be in a country that people have gone before us," Bustillos said following the ceremony. "It's a day to honor the people who've died for us, and we must never forget."

Bustillos and Natividad said they also take time to remember those who've served in the Armed Forces on Memorial Day because it's a tradition their late father, Manuel O. Jimenez, a former member of the Army Air Corps, started with them when they were younger.

"He was so proud," Bustillos said, as she reached up to catch a tear in her eye. "He was so proud to be an American."

Stephan Brown, CAF president and chief executive officer, said the event helps the community recognize present and former military personnel.

"That's a big part of our daily mission here," he said.

The CAF has offered the event to the public since 1992, he said.

Midlander Lowell Dean Hargrave and his wife, Connie, attended the ceremony and said Memorial Day means more to them now since they have a son and two sons-in-law currently serving in the military.

Lowell Dean Hargrave, a former Marine who served off shore in Vietnam, said attending Monday's event helped him commemorate the memories of people he fought with and others who've also served this country.

"It's an honor to be able to do this," he said. "If we hadn't gone over there to fight, who knows where we'd be today. 

Keni Thomas, a 42-year-old former Army Ranger who served as a team leader in a battle in Mogadishu, spoke briefly to attendees during the ceremony.

Thomas also spoke later in the day as part of the CAF's quarterly seminar series.

The battle in which he fought in Somalia later was portrayed in the 2001 film, "Black Hawk Down."

During the ceremony, Thomas discussed about how everyone seems to know somebody who's served in the Armed Forces and how it's important to keep those memories alive.

"The military's a family business," he said. "And if we don't tell the stories of the people around us, who will?"