Remembering Clyde Lucas….the first in a probable series of Veterans remembrances on Memorial Day weekend

Clyde died for his country back in 1968. Let’s remember him and so many more on this Memorial Day Weekend. Join Honor Guard details from the American Legion and Coast Guard Noyo Harbor for the annual Memorial Day ceremonies.The first will be at 10am at Zenith Hill in Mendocino Village and 11am at Rose Memorial in Fort Bragg.I am doing something I have done dozens of times in my career- profile a veteran from our town who was lost in each of America’s wars for Memorial Day. I strongly believe that the sacrifice these brave young men and women made is a critical part of the spirit we need to turn our critically injured nation around on this Memorial Day. 

I also wrote our nation was critically injured back in 2003 when I began doing this for veterans at the California Veterans Home for the Napa Valley Register. Back then, we had launched a war without stating any clear objectives, without any end game, without any sensible discussion of why beyond a very dubious claim on WMDs by a man we mostly revered till then.Memorial Day is about remembering the warriors who died but also making sure others do not have to make the same sacrifice unless it is truly needed.  The organizations who help us remember,, the VFW and American Legion, will be putting out flags which will be put on military graves all over the Coast and the nation. We should hire the Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts to run the country and send all of Congress to nursing homes or 5150 holds. The Boy Scouts can actually get this job done without boasting, taking any credit and go to remote corners of everywhere, find these graves and put the flag on correctly and then come back and retrieve them all. Congress getting something done this well? LOL. I looked through several years from the 60s of Vietnam and also the 1940s and lost all track of time, in more ways than one.I found that the editors of the Mendocino Beacon, then still locally owned and with more info in one issue than you get now in 6 months, had created a very appropriate remembrance of a beloved 1966 Mendo High graduate who was killed by a land mine just weeks before he was to return back to his hometown.  I was going to make Mr.  Lucas my vets day remembrance figure but then I remembered I had read this name somewhere before. But where?

Searching the web brought up the fact Paul McCarthy had made remembering this man’s service a personal crusade after his beloved Mendocino HIgh replaced the big football fieldscoreboard that had been dedicated to him back in the 1960s and replaced it with one that lacked his name.Paul McCarthy was an icon of Coast journalism and one of the most vigorous boosters of Menodicno High School ever. Paul knew everybody on the Coast or if he didn’t that was a mistake he’d make up pretty quick with you, starting with a firm handshake.

Lucas was a great guy and a fine athlete. He lived on Ukiah Street with his father and sister. Many classmates commented about 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 wrote: “ 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.”Clyde Lucas was a Specialist 5, a construction surveyor, with the U S Army, A Company, 84th Engineering Brigade, 937th Engineering Group. The province he died in, Phu Yen, is remarkably similar to this coast – although approximately 7,850 due west: rural coastline leading to winding, twisting roads through coastal hills covered at times in mist & fog.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.PHOTO–MSP 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).Update on the German flag story…The person flying the German WWII Wermacht flag for all to see in Fort Bragg was flying it above the American flag. This was not OK with me. The person took down the American flag and a few days later took the German flag down as well.The person wrote in response to what I said that he had the German flag up as they were honoring their parents who served in the German military. My other Q’ why WWII German flag they seemed to answer by saying they got that flag at the thrift shop to remember parents. I hope to connect with the flag person and do a story about what they choose to honor on Memorial Day, which is fine as long as they dont fly the flag of the vanquished Germany above that of the stars and stripes.  The person hasn’t been home since I went by. I left an invitation for me to buy them lunch.  Following this year’s ceremonies, American Legion Sequoia Post 96 invites veterans and their families to a spaghetti lunch, 12:30pm at Veterans Memorial Hall in Fort Bragg.