Saratoga News
Cover Story
Photograph by George Sakkestad
Madronia Cemetery, located under the trees at the end of Oak Street, will be the destination for those walking from Blaney Plaza during the May 29 Memorial Day observance in Saratoga. Gary Reed has served as the cemetery's general manager for 18 years.
Fitting Tribute
Saratoga will honor fallen vets in Memorial Day observance
By Jason Sweeney
Don Rue Sain grew up in Saratoga but was killed in Vietnam. He was 23 years old when he was cut down by enemy fire. Rick Sain is Don's younger brother. Rick is now a retired San Jose police officer who lives in Redding with his family.
Rick described his older brother as a quiet kid who was a good athlete. The two boys grew up in Saratoga going to Saratoga schools. Back then, Saratoga students went to Los Gatos High School. After Don graduated from Los Gatos High in 1961, he went to community college. But after a year, he quit school and enlisted in the Army.
Don was assigned to a special operations unit in Vietnam. On July 29, 1966, he was out on a patrol with a small team of Americans and South Vietnamese. They were conducting a reconnaissance mission outside Khe San Combat Base near the Laos border and North Vietnam.
Rick still has a newspaper article that recounts his brother's death. Rick reads how the patrol encountered a numerically superior force and came under heavy fire. Don delayed the enemy so his patrol could move into a more defensible position and avoid being surrounded. Under violent outbursts of enemy fire, Don reached his radio gear and called for a helicopter evacuation. During a last relentless effort to protect his fellow soldiers, Don was mortally wounded.
In a website dedicated to his unit, reports of the incident state Don's body was found staked to the ground and crudely booby-trapped with a hand grenade.
In 1966, the American involvement in Vietnam was rapidly escalating. "At that time, we were aware of the war but it was far away," Rick said. Then, he and his family learned that Don had been killed. "It brought the war home. For my mom, it hurt a lot. My dad never recovered from it. He was never the same."
Ultimately, 58,191 Americans were killed in the Vietnam War.
Don was brought home and laid to rest at the Madronia Cemetery in Saratoga. "Died in Vietnam," it says on the small, flat headstone embedded in grass. Norris Sain was laid to rest next to his son in 1987. Dorothy joined her son and husband in 2000.
Rick still makes it down to Saratoga every now and then. When he is here, he visits his father, mother and brother at the small cemetery under the trees at the end of Oak Street.
Americans honor their war dead one day a year on Memorial Day. But for those who have lost a loved one in war, every day is Memorial Day.
"There's not a day that goes by that I don't think of him," Rick said. "My wife and I and our family support all veterans and active members of the armed forces. There's not a day that goes by that I don't think of him or our guys that are serving now."
Madronia Cemetery
Gary Reed served his time in Vietnam. Today, he is the general manager of the Madronia Cemetery.
The small cemetery above the Village and under the trees is a verdant green in the sunshine this spring morning. "It's your typical small town cemetery," Reed said.
Madronia Cemetery is the endpoint for Saratoga's annual Memorial Day event that first began in the 1920s. Every Memorial Day, Saratogans gather at Blaney Plaza under the Memorial Arch. They walk up Oak Street to Madronia to place flags at the graves of the veterans buried there.
Madronia is home to veterans of the Civil War up through the Vietnam War. Although no veterans from the Gulf War, Afghanistan or the Iraq war are buried here, Mark Bingham is.
The date on Bingham's headstone reads Sept. 11, 2001. Bingham was 31 years old when he boarded United Airlines Flight 93. He is believed to be one of the passengers who stormed the cockpit and caused Flight 93 to crash in a Pennsylvania field before its hijackers could reach their intended target.
"He wasn't a veteran, but we put a flag out for him," Reed said. "He died defending his country."
Reed said he rarely thinks about his time in the Navy. He joined up right out of high school. "It was in 1964 before Vietnam heated up. It started heating up after that."
Reed spent two six-month deployments in Vietnam flying as a radioman on P5M Marlins and P-3 Orions based out of Cam Ranh Bay. The missions were long and tiring, he said.
"It's not anything I care to remember. I put my four years in and got out."
Reed completed his military service at Moffett Field. He liked California weather and decided to stay here instead of returning to his native upstate New York. He has worked at Madronia for the last 18 years.
Reed said 798 veterans are buried at the cemetery with four more now scheduled for burial. World War II veteran Wilbur Pecka was laid to rest here on May 10. Pecka was a navigator on a B-24 that was shot down over Germany. He then spent a year and a half in a German prisoner of war camp. Pecka had been a guest speaker at Blaney Plaza during past Memorial Days.
Capt. Antoine Brooks
Every year, the last Monday in May is Memorial Day when Americans honor their war dead. Saratogans have been honoring those who died while serving their country since the city's first annual Memorial Day event in 1928.
This year, the event is on May 29. It begins at 9:30 a.m. with the raising of the flag and the placing of a wreath at the Memorial Arch at Blaney Plaza. Those gathered at the arch will then walk up Oak Street to the cadence of the Redwood Middle School band percussion section under the direction of Vicky Wyant. The group will join those seated at the Madronia Cemetery at 10 a.m.
Mayor Norman Kline will provide the city's greeting and Pastor Arvin Engelson, of the Saratoga Federated Church, will deliver the invocation and benediction. The Saratoga High School band and choir will provide music.
Members of Saratoga Brownies, Girl Scouts, Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, 4-H club members, as well as other children from the community, will help place memorial boughs on the graves of veterans.
As in years past, a veteran has been invited to speak. Capt. Antoine Brooks, a 20-year member of the U.S. Army who recently returned from Iraq, is this year's guest speaker.
Brooks joined the Army when he was 17 after he graduated from Jefferson High School in Daly City. After eight years as an active duty enlisted man, he switched over to the Army Reserves and then to the California Army National Guard. While a student at Menlo College, Brooks joined the ROTC. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the National Guard in 1998.
While running his own business and living in Palo Alto with his fiancé, Brooks was told he was being deployed to Iraq. In 2003, he was sent to Karbala with the 870th MP Company. After conducting security details and patrols and setting up a police academy for the Iraqis, Brooks was sent to the infamous Abu Ghraib prison.
He recalls being attacked every day with mortars, small arms fire and rocket propelled grenades. "You name it," he said. "We got hit.
"You get there and people are shooting at you. It's hard to be courteous to people. But then you realize they are just like you and me. They are trying to survive and provide for their family the best way they can."
Brooks said his year in Iraq was difficult. Not only was he responsible for his troops in a hostile environment, there was a language barrier to overcome. Unintentional cultural misunderstandings could easily offend. By just acknowledging someone's wife or showing the bottom of your shoe, it could be interpreted as a major insult and become a potentially volatile incident if not defused.
Brooks said he developed rapport with Iraqis. He began learning about their culture and about the problems they face.
He returned from Iraq in 2004. In 2005, he was deployed again for Hurricane Katrina.
Before Brooks was sent to Iraq, Memorial Day was a day off spent barbecuing with friends and family. "My whole outlook since Iraq, and even Hurricane Katrina--it's not just a day anymore. I have a more human connection to it. It's taken on a whole new meaning."
After 20 years serving his country, including his stint in Iraq, Brooks is weighing whether to retire from military life in September.
He says it has been much more difficult for others. He speaks of the struggles that other veterans have gone through. "Who knows where our country would be today if it hadn't been for those who have served? Everything that previous veterans have sacrificed has shaped my life."
