Gregory Millard was remembered Monday as being loyal, extremely professional, funny, kind, with a gift of gab — a guy everyone wanted to be around and looked up to.
In the U.S. Army, he was a parachutist, combat infantryman, assistant machine gunner and expert marksman.
He died exactly 18 years ago Monday at age 22, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle on Iraqi soil.
Millard was honored as his relatives wept during the 125th Memorial Service and Day of Remembrance at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery.
Fort Rosecrans honored Gold Star families. Flower wreaths and gun salutes, along with talks from military officials and a POW/MIA accounting agency, were part of the ceremony.
On the USS Midway Museum, a crowd listened to World War II veterans, who recalled their service and spoke of their fallen fellow service members. A wreath laying and missing-man flyover followed.
San Diegans gathered by the hundreds at Fort Rosecrans and USS Midway to pay tribute to fallen service members and honor the meaning of Memorial Day. Another ceremony — at the Mount Soledad National Veterans Memorial — saluted the 17 who died 25 years ago in the Al-Qaeda attack on the USS Cole in the port of Aden, Yemen.
Two days before his death, Cpl. Gregory “Shorty” Millard told his mother over the phone that he was tired hungry, dirty and hot and “I just want to come home.” That was the last time she heard his voice.
The mother, Jill, is now the secretary of the Fort Rosecrans Support Foundation. The “Shorty” nickname was for some time no longer apt since he grew to over 6 feet tall, but he was remembered as a someone who made others feel better.
Lt. Col. Michael Pomoski spoke of Millard, who graduated from La Jolla High School and enlisted in the Army shortly after 9-11. Millard had been on the school’s wrestling and football teams.
Following another national tragedy, Millard, then a member of the 82nd Airborne Division, aided in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.
Pomoski read a tribute by Millard’s best friend, a woman named Megan.
“To give your life for country is the most selfless act one could do. And to know Greg is to know he would do anything to protect his family, his friends and his country.”
Army Col. Ethan Diven, keynote speaker at the cemetery, said: “The fallen have given us the greatest gift of all. They sacrificed their future for ours.
“This common commitment to defend our nation and love our country creates the unbreakable bond that continues to endure the test of time. This is why we honor our fallen. These shared bonds of hardship, patriotism and selfless service.”
Another Fort Rosecrans speaker, Dr. Jesse Stephen from the defense POW MIA accounting agency, spoke of the pain of families when remains of loved ones haven’t been returned.
“For many families, the wounds of war remain open,” he said. “Their hearts are heavy with the uncertainty of their loved one’s fate.” Across the globe, Stephen said, are graves marked as unknown and countless families left waiting for answers.
“It is our solemn obligation to pursue the fullest possible accounting for these missing,” he said.
Stephen said more than 81,000 U.S. personnel from WWII to today are still unaccounted for.
He recalled the story of Aviation Radioman 1st Class Wilbur Mitts, who was killed during WWII, but his remains weren’t identified until February 2023 with the assistance of dental records. Additionally, scientists from the Armed Forces medical examiner system used mitochondrial DNA analysis. San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria spoke at the USS Midway Museum.
“This Memorial Day carries additional meaning as we recognize the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, a conflict that redefined our world and demonstrated the resolve, bravery and sacrifice of what we now, rightly, call the greatest generation,” Gloria said.
“San Diego played a critical role in that war effort. Our city built the ships and the airplanes, trained the pilots and the Marines, deployed troops and welcomed home fewer than we sent out to sea.”
“Many left this very pier knowing that they may never return — and tragically many did not,” Gloria added.
Navy WWII veteran Juan Montaño, 99 — who started working at age 8 by shoveling snow and delivering newspapers and ran away from home at 15 — spoke of his dangerous missions and those who didn’t survive.
Montaño, as a coxswain on small landing-craft boats, took part in multiple amphibiouslandings, including the Battle of Iwo Jima where, under tremendous enemy gunfire, he landedU.S. Marines and their equipment on the beach. He retired from the Navy in 1963.
“I salute you all, dear veterans, and people in this area for coming to see what’s left of us,” he said.
Another WWII veteran who spoke to the crowd on the USS Midway, Al Hansen, said his mother lied about his age so he could join the Navy at age 16 in 1943.
His father was deceased and his mother made meager money as a waitress – taking home only 25 cents in tips each eight-hour shift. She was raising four children.
After Hansen got into trouble, the police chief and mayor of a small town in Florida suggested that his mother sign a paper, saying he was 17. In the service, he would earn $30 a month. Half of it would go to the mother.
Hansen was assigned as a gunner to a Navy patrol-bomber squadron in the Pacific Theater flying 20 combat missions over the South China Sea. Hansen served until 1947. He is 97 years old.
Coast Guard veteran Ena Slaughter, 100, worked in a medical lab. She also went to a very-crowded Times Square on VJ Day, she told the Midway crowd.
Army Air Corp veteran Fred Taylor, 103, said he honored Memorial Day by remembering his flying buddies and his high-school classmate who was killed in Operation Tiger, a rehearsal for the D-Day invasion.
His college education was interrupted by the war, but his daughter sent him back to Cornell College in Iowa to walk across the graduation stage 80 years later. He earned his bachelor’s degree in music.
He went on to be a band director at Parkway Middle School in La Mesa. On the Midway, Mayor Gloria concluded his talk: “San Diego is a proud military town, and we remember because we must. We remember because it is the absolute very least that we can do for those who gave everything for us to live free.
“Let us carry forward the legacy of those who served. Let us cherish the freedoms that they secured, and let us all live lives that are worthy of their sacrifice.”
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