Family sacrifice remembered on Memorial Day

It was the last can of peaches.

U.S. Army veteran Capt. Joe Florencio Acosta was on Black ops, behind enemy lines somewhere outside Vietnam, and it was all the food remaining for five men.

"Little did I know that that night the guy that I shared my spoon and my peaches with I was going to put in a body bag and I was going to carry him around for three days because we don't leave our Rangers behind," Acosta told those gathered at Monday's Memorial Day ceremony at Historic Union Cemetery.

They had to run and burn everything they had, hiding from the enemy. They could not stop, with no sleep for four days and three nights, living off the woods, grabbing what was edible, throwing hand grenades into the water to get fish to eat raw.

Acosta said he has more bullet holes and lead in his body than he cares to share, plus a pacemaker and more, "but here I am, guys. You can't keep a Ranger down."

But for all that he lived through, he gave more credit to his family - his wife of 53 years and two daughters. He does not like to dwell on war, he said, but he did want to share the sacrifices of military families.

He recalled celebrating his 10th marriage anniversary, sitting cross-legged in his living room eating Chinese take-out food, talking with his wife about it being time to re-enlist.

By that time they'd moved 14 times, picking up the kids and household to go somewhere new and far-flung. About eight more moves would come over five or six more years.

There were times Acosta would return home and his older daughter was afraid to come to him because she didn't know who he was. He wasn't the milkman, Acosta joked.

But it was no joke that these are the sacrifices that mothers and wives make to guard the United States.

He noted that less than 1 percent of citizens put on the uniform - and it's not enough.

While Acosta served, he said, his wife was home taking care of a sick daughter. Taking care of the bill collector. Dealing with the commander of a post because she had parked in the wrong place, prompting a parking ticket.

And at one point, he was listed as killed in action. But he wasn't - and with the help of the Red Cross got some of his money to his wife.

The families sacrifice, he said, whether moving from school to school or sleeping in a car in the parking lot of a commissary at a new assignment or getting just a little excited by the Kmart with air conditioning in a tiny Arizona town with just one stop sign - not a light, mind you.

Acosta said military families suffer along with their loved one who is serving. Sometimes, he said, his wife would wonder if he loved the military more than her. And sometimes, he said, he did - depending on the condition in which she left his breakfast.

That brought hearty laughs from those at Monday's ceremony, a contrast to the overall solemnity of the morning.

"I am so grateful to be a member of this country, to be a member of this society, to be a member of this community," Acosta said.

That community showed its gratitude with a ceremony woven with tradition including patriotic music from the Veterans Family Band of Bakersfield, the presence of the Kern Chapter of the Sons of the America Revolution and Kern County Nurse Honor Guard and a wreath laying with the help of the Bakersfield Young Marines.

Kern County Supervisor Chris Parlier, Rep. Vince Fong and Bakersfield Mayor Karen Goh all spoke of sacrifice.

Goh spoke of the families - some children grew up with only photographs and folded flags, empty chairs and silent dinner tables.

At the cemetery grounds, Goh said, "Bakersfield's story is etched not only in stone, but in sacrifice, but in courage, and also, in heartbreak."

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