Thursday, June 10, 1999

Gift of flag memorable to veterans

Vicente R. Guerrero didn't think he had done anything special. As a soldier of Gen. George S. Patton's during World War II, he was wounded twice in Italy, but considered himself lucky to return home alive and whole.
   Why then would a Marine come knocking on his door all these years later, looking to present him with a U.S. flag in honor of his service?
   "It was but a small token of appreciation for what he'd done for our country," said Gunnery Sgt. Kelvin Jackson, a Marine recruiter at Sunrise Mall, who recently visited the 79-year-old at his Corpus Christi home. Jackson's visit was coordinated by the Coastal Bend Veteran of the Month program, founded 10 years ago by Martin Lopez Jr., who himself spent a few months in the Army before being discharged on a medical disability. The program honors ex-service members and awards them a flag flown at the nation's Capitol.
   Guerrero suffers from Alzheimer's, but, to the delight of his family, was able to remember soldiers' names and military operations during Jackson's visit last week. That 15-minute flag presentation turned into a 3 -hour chat that made Jackson feel like he'd found a long, lost friend.
   Difficult time
   It was such a visit, this one by a different serviceman that proved a turning point for Arturo "Shaker" Villa, a Portland resident and Vietnam War veteran diagnosed with liver cancer in 1998. Villa had battled colon cancer years earlier and thought he had the disease beat when it reappeared.
   This time there was no hope for a cure and the disease progressed rapidly. Villa's wife, Leticia Villa, 41, assistant principal at Gregory-Portland Intermediate School, grew worried; her 51-year-old husband had become despondent and forbade their children, Clarissa and Miranda, to visit him at the hospital because he wanted to spare them.
   Meanwhile, Lopez received word about Villa and eventually Villa's name came up for the veteran honor. By then, however, the Villas were staying with friends in Sugar Land to be closer to M.D. Anderson Hospital.
   Making peace
   The logistics proved a minor obstacle to overcome, thanks to a soldier based in nearby Rosenberg who agreed to make the drive and formally present the flag to Villa. The visit was an answer to a prayer.
   When he spotted the uniformed soldier walking up the sidewalk and to the front door, her husband's spirits seemed to lift immediately, Leticia Villa recalled. No one was present at the flag presentation but the three of them. She didn't hear the words the two men exchanged, but whatever was said "completely turned him around." By the time he left, Villa said, she was convinced that the soldier had been more than a messenger dispatched on Lopez's behalf, for her husband finally found what she desperately wanted for him - peace. He even made peace with his Vietnam experiences, which he had always regarded as the most negative chapter in his life.
   The month before his death on May 8, 1998, Villa celebrated his last birthday at the hospital in the company of his wife and daughters. He, his wife recalled, was himself again. He laughed so hard he held his belly like he always did.
   "My husband never had to tell me what that soldier's visit meant to him. It was all in his being. And he embraced that flag so." It is a flag she now proudly displays on top of her living room piano, along with the other she received at her husband's funeral.
  
  
  
 

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  © 1999 Corpus Christi Caller Times, a Scripps Howard newspaper. All rights reserved.