FALLEN VETERANS HONORED LOCAL CEREMONY MARKS SOLDIERS' SACRIFICES IN WAR.

Byline: Holly Edwards Staff Writer

CANYON COUNTRY - As the mournful sound of a bugle playing taps filled the air, dozens of veterans embraced and wiped tears Saturday morning during a Veterans Day ceremony at VFW Post 6385 in Canyon Country.

Decades after their last day in battle, these men and women were still filled with sadness for their lost comrades and vivid memories of the battlefield horrors they experienced.

``People on both sides of me were being wounded and killed, and I was terrified,'' recalled 83-year-old Tony Marincola of Canyon Country, a U.S. Army paratrooper who served in the Battle of the Bulge during World War II. ``We were ambushed there on what we called Dead Man's Ridge.''

In January 1945, 19 days after arriving on the battlefield, Marincola was wounded by shrapnel during the historic battle and was discharged from the Army later that year.

But memories of his fallen friends and comrades have never faded.

``I wish our schools would teach kids more about World War II because people are forgetting what happened,'' he said. ``I hope people never forget us, and when they see a veteran, thank him.''

Fifty-year-old Cecilia Marin, also of Canyon Country, said she hopes people remember the contributions women have made in war.

``We were all there for a reason and we were all there to do a job, whether we were a man or a woman,'' she said. ``Women have risked their lives and died for their country in every war we've had.''

Marin was a U.S. Marine Corps lieutenant serving in the Vietnam War whose job was to bag dead bodies and prevent injured soldiers from killing themselves before they were rescued.

``There were about 142 of us women who would go right to the front lines and remove ammo from soldier's hands after battle so they wouldn't commit suicide,'' she said. ``A lot of soldiers when they saw themselves dismembered would shoot themselves before help got there.''

Marin was a medical school student during the war, but said her grisly job on the battlefield discouraged her from becoming a doctor.

``I didn't want to see blood or any of that stuff again,'' she said. ``The sights, the smells, it was all just a terrifying situation.''

While many veterans discussed their experiences openly, others were silent, apparently finding the memory too painful.

Andy Anderson, a 75-year-old veteran of both World War II and the Korean War, said his brother was captured by the Japanese army soon after World War II started in 1939, and was held in a prison camp until the war ended in 1945.

Until recently, Anderson said, his brother would not talk about the experience.

``My brother would tell me stories, but he would never tell me the nasty, rotten stuff that happened,'' Anderson said. ``There are a lot of us who still can't talk about war at all.''

Despite their emotional and physical scars, Anderson said veterans as a whole are an upbeat group with a relentless sense of humor.

``People think we're all out here crying in our beer, but that's not true,'' he said. ``We've had to keep our sense of humor to survive and there has been a lot of good times mixed with the bad. I think we should always remember the good stuff and our good friends.''

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) World War II veteran Andy Anderson weeps as VFW chaplain Jack Jannisch, foreground, offers a prayer Saturday.

(2 -- color) A couple attending Saturday's observance in Canyon Country passes a symbol of the United States and freedom, an eagle.

Joe Binoya/Special to the Daily News