On Memorial Day, Sierra Interfaith Action For Peace placed small American flags on the lawn in front of the Bruce R. Thompson Federal Building to honor the U.S. soldiers who have lost their lives in the present conflict in Iraq.
“We started the event at 12 o’clock,” said John Hadder, pictured center. “We read off all the names that we had of soldiers who have died in Iraq, a little over 800 names—some haven’t been released yet. As the names were read, a flag was placed in the ground. We read the names at 3 o’clock. At 5:30, we read the names, and people put the flags into a basket. We acknowledged the soldiers three times on Monday. The point of the day was to honor the commitment and integrity of those soldiers.”