Under sunny skies and with a breezy afternoon that hints of summer, Memorial Day was commemorated May 25, at the Los Gatos Civic Center lawn in front of the Flame of Liberty sculpture.
Folks began arriving around 11am. Chairs were set up inside a large tent on the grass. The Nick Williams Trio played softly in the background, today veterans were honored and there was “remembrance of those who made the ultimate sacrifice in service to our nation.”
Food was available for veterans with a Mexican food truck and a shaved ice truck in the library parking lot behind the Flame of Liberty. Along Main Street, an Open Doors to Future Possibilities, Inc. table was set up where veterans could check in. The founder of ODFP, Simone Lundquist, who holds a doctorate in psychology, would be arriving soon.
I then caught up with Catherine Hastings, assistant executive director of ODFP. The headquarters of ODFP is located at 1550 The Alameda, Suite 150, San Jose. It’s a non-profit that offers affordable counseling and holistic support, primarily for veterans and first responders. ODFP had a mission to organize this event. “I met Simone Lundquist…while I was attending San Jose State University,” Hastings said. “I did not know what I was going to do, and then I ran into Lindquist and became involved. Now I am the assistant to Dr. Simone.”
Nearby two volunteers stood at another table selling a memoir titled, “Dark Horse: Harnessing hidden potential in war and life” a memoir by Amatangelo “A.J.” Pasciuti, a former Marine scout sniper. It looked like good reading.
There I spoke with Karina Valdival, who also met Lundquist while attending SJSU. “I took three of Dr. Lundquist’s classes, learning about her therapy approach,” Vildival said. “It really just shifted my perspective.” Valdival added, “I am also a veteran. So for me, I really could relate to everything she was talking about—just getting stuck in your trauma. It just opened up a different door for me.”
Valdival served in the Marine Corps at Quantico for four years.
“Dr. Simone’s courses, as a whole, just show you a new approach to therapy and how to view the world,” she said. “It brings strength into you—how to view the world in a more balanced way. It was so beautiful that I know that I just had to be here helping today.”
Lundquist opened with: “Go to the invisible wounds of trauma. The cost of war is never truly paid when the guns go silent. For many, the battles come home with them. Recruits participate in 6-13 weeks of training, known as bootcamp. However when they separate from military life and come back home there is not any training to prepare them to re-enter civilian life.”
She continued, “Once they have left the field, they do not let anyone close to them, for fear of losing them.” Over 30,177 active-duty personnel and veterans (who served in the post-9-11 wars, including Iraq and Afghanistan) have died by suicide, according to the Costs of War Project at Brown University. This is roughly four times higher than the number of U.S. service members killed in combat operations.
Simone also mentioned major problems with sexual harassment and abuse in the military.
Today there are more than two million female veterans in the USA.
“This year we celebrate June 12 at 5:30pm, in recognition of the anniversary of the 1948 Women’s Armed Services Integration Act, granting women permanent place and an opportunity for a career in the military,” Simone stated.
Lundquist founded ODFP in 2019. The non-profit provides services to military veterans and their families, free of charge. She is also a clinical psychology professor at SJSU University. Her life as a social and political activist began when she was a teenager. Fluent in multiple languages, she was recruited as an interpreter for international humanitarian missions, serving with the United Nations and the Red Cross. She delivered food and medicine in war zones.
On one foray, her team was devastated by an IED explosion with fatal consequences. She was wounded, but survived.
Mayor Rob Moore said American security was no accident. “It was earned at a great personal cost by the generation of US military personnel who died while serving in the armed forces,” he said. “We are the beneficiaries of a peace that others protected. I think about that a lot, not with guilt, but with gratitude. Because that distance from hardship is, in many ways, exactly what those who serve this nation fought so bravely to give us. They did not want their children or grandchildren to know about the violence.”
They fought to create a safer, and more peaceful, world, he added.
“Those events can feel remote and far away—like they happened on another planet to other people in another world,” the young mayor said, adding local youth may not know about sacrifices that previous generations made in battle to keep America what it is today. “Every time we share a story with a student, we are doing something that a textbook alone cannot do.”
Following Mayor Moore’s speech:
Maj. Gen. Jody A. Merritt, Air Force, spoke
Retired Maj. Gen. Kent Hillhouse, Army, spoke
Honor Guard rifle salute
Flag-folding tribute
“Taps” performed by Nick Williams
Retirement of Colors, as bagpiper Matt Roben played “Amazing Grace”
And Lundquist provided closing remarks.
This was a day dedicated to mourning and honoring the US military personnel who died while serving in the Armed Forces. It was—and still remains—a solemn day of remembrance, dating back to the Civil War days. Families decorate those service members’ graves on this day, putting the focus on those who made the ultimate sacrifice. Monday’s ceremony in Los Gatos also offered hope.
