Remembering Clyde Lucas and All Who Gave All — Join The Services Monday: 10 a.m. in Mendocino, 11 a.m. in Fort Bragg

Memorial Day ceremonies in Mendocino and Fort Bragg on Monday, May 25. 10:00 a.m. at Zenith Hill in Mendocino and 11:00 a.m. at Rose Memorial Park in Fort Bragg. Honor guard details from the American Legion and Noyo Harbor Coast Guard host this annual event.

Honor Guard details from the American Legion and the Coast Guard’s Noyo Harbor station will lead the annual Memorial Day ceremonies, with services at 10 a.m. in Mendocino and 11 a.m. in Fort Bragg.

We strongly believe the sacrifice these young men and women made is part of the spirit our critically injured nation needs to draw on this Memorial Day. Their courage is a reminder of the values that can still steady and guide us.

Memorial Day is about remembering the warriors who died — and about doing everything we can to ensure future generations are never asked to make that sacrifice unless it is truly necessary. The organizations that help us remember, including the American Legion, will place flags on military graves across the Coast and throughout the nation.

Here at home, the loss of our local VFW chapter still stings. Membership fell too low to sustain the charter, ending decades of service and camaraderie. Yet the work of remembrance continues, carried forward by those still able to stand the line.

I spent hours paging through Beacon issues from the 1960s — and then drifted back into the 1940s — losing all track of time in more ways than one. In those old papers, when the Beacon was still locally owned and could pack more information into a single issue than we get now in six months, I found a beautifully written remembrance of a 1966 Mendocino High graduate killed by a land mine just weeks before he was supposed to come home.

Paul McCarthy was an icon of Coast journalism and one of Mendocino High’s fiercest boosters. He seemed to know everyone on the Coast, and if he didn’t, that was a mistake he’d fix quickly, usually starting with a firm handshake and a story. Remembering Clyde “Poogy” Lucas mattered to him because remembering our own always mattered to him.

Lucas was remembered as a great guy and a gifted athlete. He grew up on Ukiah Street with his father and sister, and many former classmates have shared memories of him on a Mendocino High School reunion page. Mary (Rodrigues) Miller wrote two years ago: “‘Poogy’ was my classmate from first grade through twelfth. I will never forget the crazy Halloween water balloon fights in front of his house. I always went home soaking wet with eggs smashed on my head. You were one of the good ones — we lost you way too young.”

Carolyn (Simpson) Schaller added: “You were more like a big brother to me than our next‑door neighbor when we were growing up on Ukiah Street. You have been missed so much over the years.”

And, as it turned out, a perfect place to plant land mines, which the Viet Cong did with regularity on the few roads in the province. The Viet Cong controlled the majority of the rice crop in the province, and, after the US imported 600 tons of rice to the inhabitants in 1969, then started an operation to guard the rice crop, the Viet Cong retaliated with series after series of land mines – which don’t distinguish between combatants & non-combatantsIn one incident, the Viet Cong blew a bridge in the province, and when a civilian bus went to turn around, it hit another mine, which resulted in 54 deaths (4 children) and 18 wounded. The crater was nine feet wide.Clyde Lucas was a “ground casualty” who was killed from “hostile action, died outright” from an “explosive device.”Walt Jackson wrote (about Lucas) on April 8th, 2010: “It has been a long time since SFC Donovan sent us to Oakland during Spring Break in 1966 to take our exams and physicals for the Army. I was lucky and now have grandchildren and have a good life for which I am grateful…”Benay Nielson wrote on July 11th, 2010: “Clyde was a nice guy who left us much too soon. We were lucky to have him as our classmate.”And as long as MSP is around, we will honor his memory and never forget his sacrifice.

Quote from the late Paul McCarthy about his efforts to get Lucas’s name on the sctoreboa spearheaded a “one-man” effort to get Clyde Lucas’s name back on the football scoreboard after decades of absence. The Mendo School District finally came around last Fall to our way of thinking (after three years of MSP badgering them) and did the right thing. Ditto, (finally) a sign denoting Tim Selders Memorial Football Field – another MHS student almost lost to the mists of time (and neglect).

Clyde might still be with us at age 75 if he had not given his life for his country in a rice patty when he was just barely a man. Let’s remember this spirit of courage he showed as we love our country and its courageous and Revolutionary spirit..