Staff Sgt. Estevan Altamirano died September 18th while serving in Iraq. His funeral was last week.
Melissa Correa (KRGV) reported, "The Valley came out to honor Staff Sgt. Estevan Altamirano, the Edcouch soldier who died Sept. 16 following a patrol in Iraq. The soldier's wife says he was cleaning out his weapon when it accidentally went off." Gail Burkhardt (Monitor -- link has text and video) noted:
Altamirano's stepdaughter Kayla Martinez, 16, presented a slideshow of family photos.
"I love him and he was a wonderful man," she said, her voice wavering. "And there is no one who will ever be like him."
Those people and others realized what the day was about.
Sadly, "others" does not include everyone.
Someone should have told Homer Gallegos that a funeral wasn't the place or time to work out his own decades old issues. He could be found in the media reports on the funeral stating that some WWII veterans didn't get honored the way Estevan Altamirano did and, most important to Gallegos, he didn't get honored that way.
Gallegos served during Vietnam. That ended over thirty years ago. We're not saying, "Get over it." But we are saying there's a time and there's a place. Your fussy, little pity party? Plan it for another occasion.
The day really wasn't about you.
