Gone, but not forgotten

Thousands pay tribute to fallen soldiers buried in Boulder City

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Thousands of Southern Nevadans paid tribute to fallen military personnel on Memorial Day, including those buried at the Southern Nevada Veterans Memorial Cemetery and the Boulder City Cemetery.

While the state cemetery on Buchanan Boulevard has interred some 18,000 veterans, the city's graveyard at Adams Boulevard and Utah Street contains more Boulder City veterans than Veterans Memorial Cemetery.

The unofficial count is some 300 compared to just a handful.

To honor the hometown veterans, 33 volunteers, many of them from American Legion Post 31 and its post auxiliary, set out flags and crosses starting at 6 a.m. on Memorial Day.

The early morning tradition started three hours before the usual holiday ceremony, including a 21-gun salute, which took place on the corner.

"They've been putting these flags out for as long as I can remember," said former post commander Clayton Glenn, an Army Air Corps and Air Force crew chief who saw action in the Pacific Theater during World War II. "I came here in 1957 and they were doing it then."

In addition to the American Legion honoring the dead, members of Boy Scouts Troop 293 and the International Order of Rainbow Girls helped out.

The Elks Lodge No. 1682 and the Benevolent Protective Order set out markers remembering those buried as being past members of their respective organizations.

For the past several years, volunteers have come out early on the holiday to place the flags and markers because of the perception that vandals might cause problems, but the day might be changing.

"I'm going to recommend at one of our next meetings that next year we put them out on Saturday instead of the holiday," former post commander Doug McHam said. "There had been this thought that they'd get vandalized if we did that, but I'm not so sure."

Over at the Veterans Memorial Cemetery, the latest resting place of a Boulder City soldier -- Shane Eric Patton, who was interred on July 9. 2005 -- remains as it always has with flowers and adornments that make it stand out among the nearby headstones.

The grave of the 22-year-old Navy SEAL who was killed June 28, 2005 during an assault in Afghanistan is not only ringed by flowers and flags, but also has a hardball representing his baseball days at Boulder City High School, a Jim Dunlop guitar pick representing his love of music and life, and a Nevada quarter barely discernible through the dirt covering it representing those he loved here, especially his father and his three brothers, Jimmy, Dean and Chase.

Judging by the love expressed at Patton's grave, soldiers may be gone, but they'll never be forgotten.