Jake Heinrich laid a bouquet of flowers against the gravestone of Navy SEAL Danny Dietz.
The Conifer 16-year-old never met the war hero, but he had read a book about Dietz, who on June 28, 2005, battled al-Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan to defend three other SEALS. Though Dietz was wounded and outnumbered, he fought for 45 minutes.
“He was courageous,” Heinrich said of the Navy Cross recipient. “It was sad.”
Heinrich was among hundreds of relatives, veterans in uniform and Colorado residents who paid their respects on Memorial Day at Fort Logan National Cemetery.
“Let us ensure that those who gave their lives for us are never forgotten,” U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., said in his address during ceremonies Monday.
Lynette Roff, director of the Eastern Colorado Health Care System, said many soldiers come back to Colorado with injuries seen and unseen. Many others come home in a coffin draped with an American flag.
“Let us be grateful in each generation for the brave men who step forward to protect us,” Roff said.
Buglers encircling the cemetery played a rolling rendition of taps, seemingly alluding to the fact that war heroes have fallen around the world. Four jets flew in formation during the ceremonies.
Afterward, several people went from one white gravestone to the next in a section of the cemetery where many of the soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan are buried. They pointed and quietly read the inscriptions.
“Rest easy son,” reads the headstone of Army Spec. Jonathon Sylvestre, who died in Iraq in a non-combat incident Nov. 2, six days after his 21st birthday.
Fresh bouquets of red, white and blue carnations decorated the grave of Jeffrey A. Avery, a military police officer who died April 23, 2007, in Muqdadiyah, Iraq.
The private first class was 19 when an improvised explosive device detonated during checkpoint operations.
Kirk Mitchell: 303-954-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com
