Locals celebrate veterans

The worries of local supporters of veterans that they would not have enough crosses to decorate veterans’ graves at Yuma Cemetery for Memorial Day were laid to rest this week and the celebration of veterans continued.

As reported earlier in the Yuma Sun, the Sons of the American Legion and American Legion Auxiliary Unit 19 have been decorating veterans’ graves at the cemetery with crosses and flags for almost 40 years.

However, last year when the SAL returned to the cemetery to collect the flags that had been placed, they noticed several missing.

However, thanks to attentive Yuma Sun readers, the 135 crosses were returned to the SAL.
“It turned out pretty good,” said Jimmy Allen, chaplain for SAL. “We got the flags all up, life is good.”

As predicted by Allen, another civic group had collected the crosses. “We talked to them on Thursday and we have a winner,” Allen said with a laugh.

Allen added that the whole situation ended up being a positive because the SAL will have continuing lines of communication with the group who helped to return the crosses.

Allen said the SAL leaves the crosses out year-round but takes the flags down in order to avoid wind damage.

Matthew Allen, Jimmy’s son, is a sophomore at Yuma High School and commander of the SAL for the past two years.

The process of the flag placement took four hours, but to the Allens it is time well spent.

“I don’t want to forget the veterans who have no family to take care of their graves,” Matthew Allen said.

Richard Romero can be reached at 539-6886 or rromero@yumasun.com.