70th Commemoration of Iwo Jima

Casa Grande, Arizona

People always comment when some celebrity is from their home town, but usually it's some form of actor or actress.  If you know me, that wouldn't impress me but to know that Ira Hayes lived within 10 miles of us does.  

Bill and I rode over to Sacation, Arizona, which is the seat of government for the Gila River Tribe.  They were having a 70th commemoration of Iwo Jima.  The celebration started with a parade.  I must say most people watching the parade had something that said "Marines" in their attire.  We had to park quite far from the parade and there are no sidewalks or easy traveling with someone who has a shattered heel.  Notice I managed a photo without my boot showing. 

 These six planes made a lot of fly-overs before the parade started.

I'm sure our nephew, Daniel, would have enjoyed flying in with them.

While Ira Hayes is from Sacaton, the parade celebrated many other Marines that were at Iwo Jima.  As each veteran marched in the parade, the announcer told of the awards, and how many lives that person saved.  There was one veteran who was 100 years old.  One of the veterans traveled from Pennsylvania.  I'm sure that was hard for him to leave that cold weather back East for 80 degree temperatures and sunny skies.  There was also a 96 year old veteran who marched behind the color guards and saluted the audience. 

There were many color guards and it was nice to see the respect the audience gave them.

I'm sure by the amount of people in the stands, there wasn't anyone in town that wasn't at the parade.  

I didn't attempt to crawl up the bleachers as they were crowded and didn't want anyone to accidentally hit my foot.  We watched from the Ira Hayes Park so we didn't have as good a view as we would have from the bleachers.

These girls could really sing and it reminded you of the songs from the war years.

LC Boyer told me that Ira Hayes was the one on the right.

It was another beautiful day.  For some reason Bill didn't take any photos of all the vendors.  You could have bought any kind of traditional food to eat.  They also had lots of Native American jewelry for sale.  

I have no idea how Bill managed to get this photo with only a couple of people in it.  Every time I looked at the memorial it was packed with people.  

One thing Bill and I were discussing was the pride that the Native Americans have in their country.  It's too bad more Americans don't feel that way.  

We returned to the car before the end because there was a lot of loose gravel I had to roll the scooter through it and I wanted to scoot along the edge of the road before everyone left.  

 We've heard some people talk about how backwards the people on the reservations are.  Look at these solar light poles.  They're years ahead of the rest of the country.   They show how the revenues from the casino can help their community.  

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