New Mexicans honor nation’s veterans
Posted at: 11/11/2009 12:49 PM
| Updated at: 11/11/2009 7:35 PM
By: Austin Reed, Eyewitness News 4, and Reed Upton, KOB.com
New Mexicans statewide on Wednesday honored the nation’s veterans with parades and memorials as U.S. armed forces mark their eighth year in Afghanistan and sixth year in Iraq.
President Barack Obama has been weighing options for how to strategically deal with insurgents and the Taiban in Afghanistan even as his administration continues to draw down troops in Iraq.
Obama is said to have several options for boosting manpower in Afghanistan and that he’s considering including supplying General Stanley McChrystal, the head of the Afghanistan theater, with 40,000 troops he’s requested.
At the Veterans Memorial in Albuquerque, two veterans attending ceremonies voiced support for continuing the mission in Afghanistan.
“If we pull them [the troops] out, then we are maybe kind of leaving the Afghanistan people to themselves,” said veteran Jim Lynn.
“Then again,” Lynn said later, “we were in Vietnam a long time and we pulled out and I don’t know if we gained anything.”
“When you get your feet wet,” said fellow veteran Ed Flores, “you gotta finish up what you started and I think we should send more troops.”
Flores and Lynn spoke after a Veterans Day parade wound its way through the streets of southeast Albuquerque, culminating at the Veteran’s Memorial. There, state representatives and incoming Mayor Richard Berry spoke to a crowd of hundreds.
In Santa Fe this afternoon, a special healing Mass for veterans, active duty personnel and their families will be held at the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Francis at 5:15.
And, from the state’s Four Corners, more than a dozen Navajo Code Talkers flew to New York City to take part in that city’s Veteran’s Day Parade – the largest in the nation.
Only about 50 of the original 400 World War II Code Talkers, who used their native language to baffle Japanese radio intercepts, are still alive. Several are pushing for their own national museum, which would likely be located near Gallup.
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