(bright music) - Coming up next on this special Memorial Day edition of "Arizona Horizon," a Gold Star mother shares her son's story, and the support that her organization offers families of fallen soldiers.

Also, tonight, we'll hear about the Wall of Faces, which honors those named on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, and a look at the annual Piestewa Fallen Heroes Memorial Ceremony.

Those stories and more next on this special edition of "Arizona Horizon."

- [Announcer] "Arizona Horizon" is made possible by contributions from the Friends of Arizona PBS, members of your public television station.

- Good evening, and welcome to this special Memorial Day edition of "Arizona Horizon."

I'm Ted Simons.

American Gold Star Mothers is a group of moms who've lost a son or daughter in military service.

The group works to keep the memories of their loved ones alive by helping veterans and supporting other military families.

We learn more about this organization from Diane Brown, president of the Central Arizona chapter of American Gold Star Mothers.

American Gold Star Mothers, did I do a good job of describing it there?

What more can you tell us?

- Yeah, so it's a national organization out of Washington DC, it started back in World War II.

No, World War I actually with the mothers who gathered to be together when they lost their loved ones overseas in World War I.

And it's a veteran service organization, 501C3 nonprofit, and we support other nonprofits with the veteran service organizations.

We actually have a chapter or a department here in Arizona.

- Yeah.

The Gold Star is assembled.

Was that from the beginning?

- Yeah.

The story about the Gold Star is that there used to be Blue Star, and there still is Blue Star.

So Blue Star families are ones that have an active service person serving currently.

And then how it evolved was if they lost their loved one, they sewed over the Blue Star with gold.

And that's how the Gold Stars started.

- Isn't that something?

Again, volunteer work providing what, economic assistance, social assistance?

- Yes, so we have quite a few people that help us out and support us.

Kitchell is one of them.

They do a car show for us every year.

We get lots of donations, General Dynamics, things like that.

And we support anything from the VFW up in Prescott Valley to an individual veteran down here in Phoenix that was recently in a car accident.

We also, again, serve, we go to soldiers' best friends' graduations and things like that.

- Your son, Staff Sergeant Alex Conrad, talk to us about him.

- So he was an Arizona kid.

He was born in Mesa, grew up in Chandler, went to Dobson South Little League, San Tan Legacy Soccer.

Graduated from Hamilton High School and left for bootcamp right after high school.

And went to serve, went to bootcamp first, and then he got a job with military intelligence.

So he was down here at Fort Huachuca for quite a while before he was assigned to the infantry up in Washington at McChord Lewis Base.

And from there, he went to Afghanistan twice.

And then when he came back from Afghanistan, his goal was really to get to Special Forces.

And so he needed to go to Airborne School, went to Airborne School, came back from Airborne School, was accepted at the Defense Institute Language Institute in Monterey, California, where he graduated there for French.

So he has his brother and sister, we were all like, "Why are you taking French?"

And he said, "Because they speak French in Africa."

And we're like, "Oh, Africa."

So he left for Africa in January of 2018, and he was on patrol.

They were protecting a village out in Somalia.

And they came under mortar fire from Al-Shabaab.

And there were actually five soldiers that were hit.

Took them a while to get out of there because of the firing.

But he's the one that didn't make it out.

The other four are fine.

- When this happened, were you aware of Gold Star moms before this happened?

- You know, I think I was, because mostly because of Lori Piestewa, right?

So my kids, we all grew up in Arizona, and that's where I first learned about Gold Star families.

And I never in a million years thought I would be one.

- When you became one, how did Gold Star moms, Gold Star families, how did all of this umbrella, how did it help you?

- Oh, it's a great fellowship.

I have to tell you, there's moms that have lost their kids from the Desert storm to the Iraq War and Afghanistan of course.

And so we really do feel like our mission is to continue on with our sons and daughters' service to the country.

And that's what we want to do.

And we do that lovingly and joyfully.

- [Ted] Do you see yourself in some of the moms?

- Oh yeah, definitely, yeah.

I mean, we all had this similar experience, right?

But what is so funny is that, I don't know if funny is the word, but what's so ironic about it is that we talk about our sons and daughters and they were goofy, but they were strong fighters, and we were so proud of them, but they just had the same kind of personalities.

- Yeah, they're your kids.

Of course you're gonna see them when they're goofy.

Where can people learn more about Gold Star moms?

- So we have, like I said, a department here, and we have a email that we could go to to desert.

It's called, not desert, sorry.

It is thedepartmentofarizona@american.

And they can send us a email there and we can get in touch with them.

- All right.

Very good.

Well thank you so much for sharing your story.

Thank you for coming on and all the great work you're doing with American Gold Star Mothers.

It's just fantastic work, and thank you so much.

- I appreciate it.

Thank you.

(gentle music) (car honking) (gentle music) (lively music) - [Narrator] When London Bridge was completed in 1831, the automobile didn't even exist.

By 1968, it may not have been falling down, but the bridge was sinking under the crush of modern traffic.

So the City of London decided to sell it to a developer in Arizona.

Just off of State Route 95 in Lake Havasu City is a plaque memorializing the dedication and reopening of the bridge in October 1971.

(upbeat music) The two-day gala included an elaborate dinner attended by 800 people, including then Arizona Governor Jack Williams, and Sir Peter Stud, Lord Mayor of London.

Behind the fireworks and go-go girls was over three years of risk-taking and hard work.

It was the dream of C.V. Wood and Robert McCulloch, who were developing the fledgling town.

The bridge was purchased for over $2 million.

The 22 million ton structure was dismantled, each stone numbered and shipped 10,000 miles to Long Beach, California, and then trucked to Lake Havasu's Colorado Riverbank.

It took 40 workers three years to reconstruct the bridge.

The original 19th century construction crew of 800 took seven years, and 40 laborers died.

(lively music) The bridge survived the German Blitz of London during World War II.

Its light poles are made from cannons seized from Napoleon's army at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, the metal melted down and forged into lamps.

Today, the London Bridge attracts over one and a half million sun-seeking visitors a year, exceeded only by the Grand Canyon.

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) - Wall of Faces is dedicated to honoring and remembering those named on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial by providing a picture and other information about every one of those names online.

We recently welcomed Sharon Johnston to "Arizona Horizon."

She's a Wall of Faces volunteer.

What are we dealing with here?

- Well, back in 2001, we came up with a concept of building an education center.

It was gonna be three floors in Washington DC, and often, lots of items are left there that we've collected over the years.

And so one level was gonna be that, one was going to educate the public, and one was going to honor our named on the wall with their photographs that would rotate within the system.

The issue was finding all those photographs of the more than 58,000 named on the wall.

- And at that is quite a goal.

I mean, how difficult is that?

- For some people, it's very difficult.

Getting the information out that we were even doing this project was, I think, the hardest piece that was going out there.

After 50 years, many of these families have thought that nobody ever thought about them.

So they weren't looking for information.

And there's people that start different ways.

You start with a name, and that's about all you can start with is a name and a date.

- So basically for every 58,000 plus names, you wanna get a photograph and put those photos online?

- [Sharon] Yes, originally when we were considering building the education center, they would be shown throughout the center.

However, now we have them all online.

And I'm proud to say that we have a picture for every single one.

- You did, you got them?

- We do, we do have one for every single person named on that wall.

What we're doing now, however, the process is ensuring that they are quality photographs.

These photographs that the family or the soldier himself would be proud of being up there.

Because over the years, they are often crumpled up.

They are often lost.

And so getting the quality photograph is where we're at now, is trying to restore some of those photographs and reach out to the family members a little bit more in-depth instead of just taking one out of the old newspapers or taking one out of an old yearbook, actually contacting the families, and that's what I do.

- I was gonna say, that must take an awful lot of work, a lot of investigative work, that's tough stuff.

- [Sharon] It's like putting a puzzle together.

- Is that how you look at it?

- That's how you have to look at it, that there are pieces, and you have to be patient.

You have to know when to stop and come back six months later because then you see it in a whole new light.

- Yeah, and you also hear, I would imagine, just a number of family stories, you must dig, I mean, you must have heard it all.

- You can't even begin to imagine the stories because for these families, it's as if it happened yesterday, it truly is.

- [Ted] Well, and I know that there's a traveling wall that heals, I think is what it's called, tell us about that.

- We have volunteers that donate their time to work at these events that are held all around the country.

The wall is an actual replica, even if there's a mistake on the wall, it is an exact replica sized down that goes into a truck and is delivered to local communities around our country.

Volunteers work, we help people locate the person's name, and it's shocking to them, we can pull up our little cell phones and we can bring up a picture of their loved one as well or someone that they served with.

- And I would imagine, I've read this actually, the Wall of Faces is for those who just may not be ready to go to Washington and look at that memorial.

- Exactly, exactly.

- For some, that is still, they just still can't do it.

- They can't do it.

It was different in those days than it is now.

And I think that we are seeing, with the traveling wall, we are seeing our crowds get bigger because more people are reaching out.

I had a woman this week call me.

I hadn't heard from her in seven years.

And she says, "I think I'm gonna go."

It was her brother and her husband's brother also who passed away.

And she just called and says, "You know, I just had to call and let you know I'm ready to go."

- Wow.

The traveling Wall of Faces.

Can you do the name rubbings?

- Yes, you can.

- You can do those.

- You can do them there, you can do them at the wall in DC, and we encourage people to do it.

And sometimes for those soldiers who are looking for their friends that they served with, it is a very...

It's hard to put into words moment for them that they get to touch those names.

You'll often see them just rub their fingers over the names.

And that is honoring the person that they served with that may have died right next to them.

- And you can do with the traveling Wall of Faces.

You almost get the same experience.

- [Sharon] Exactly, exactly.

- I gotta ask you, we're running out time, but I've gotta ask you, how did you get started with this?

- I was working on my family genealogy about 12, 15 years ago.

And something came across one of the sites I work with that said, "Hey, we have this family, this group in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia, who's been for seven years looking for the photograph and family of a soldier that they want to honor with a monument in their community."

And I asked if I could help and I was able to locate family, but nobody had a picture.

And so I wrote for his records.

And when that picture came in the mail, I was hooked.

And I knew I had to do more.

- Well, you have done a lot more, and congratulations on a job well done.

I mean, just great work.

Sharon Johnston again, Wall of Faces volunteer.

Continued success, thank you so much.

- Thank you for having me, I appreciate it.

(gentle music) (upbeat music) ♪ I would have enough to take you out ♪ ♪ But I can't, oh no ♪ That's without a doubt ♪ Oh I got to pay what I owe ♪ The landlord who put back out or door ♪ ♪ Doggone it ♪ Doggone it ♪ Doggone it ♪ Woo, it is another Saturday night ♪ ♪ All right ♪ If I take you out ♪ Things would be uptight ♪ Whoa ♪ I got to wash it out of my mind ♪ ♪ Got to make it some other time ♪ ♪ Doggone it (car honking) (gentle music) - [Narrator] In Northwest Arizona just off State Route 95 stands a peculiar monument to the town of Oatman.

Oddly, the marker is 15 miles from the town it honors.

Wedged into the Black Mountains, the mining town of Oatman was established at the turn of the century.

By the 1930s, nearly 2 million ounces of gold had been extracted from the surrounding mines.

The price of gold and World War II forced the closure of the mines in the '40s.

The town was delivered another blow when in 1952, a stretch of Interstate 40 opened, siphoning off Oatman's lifeblood, Route 66 traffic.

It quickly became a ghost town.

(guns firing) (crowd cheering) Route 66 is again its lifeblood.

Nostalgia for the mother road and the Old West draw tourists from all over the world.

They walk the boardwalks, hang with the local gunfighters, and are followed around by Oatman's most famous residents, the burrows, descendants of those set free by miners years ago.

Being closer to Nevada than the town itself, Oatman's misplaced monument is long forgotten, but the town is remembered daily.

- Each year on March 23rd, the Piestewa Fallen Heroes Memorial Ceremony pays tribute to Lori Piestewa, the first documented American female casualty in the Iraq war, as well as the first known American Indian woman to die in combat.

The ceremony also honors other fallen heroes.

Jim Covarrubias is a chairman of the Piestewa Fallen Heroes Memorial.

This is a really nice ceremony, isn't it?

This is good stuff.

- It is good stuff.

It's sad stuff at the same time.

This is honoring the fallen heroes, the military.

But it's an important, I think event to allow the families to come.

And over the last 22 years, what we've done is create a family.

A family of Gold Star mothers, Gold Star fathers, Gold Star wives, the Blue Star families, and Silver Star families.

- Yes.

This is a sunrise event, correct?

- Sunrise at Piestewa Peak.

The event began because of the Iraq war when Lori Piestewa was killed on March 23rd, 2023, no, excuse me, 2003 in Nazarea, Iraq.

It was the bloodiest day of the war.

35 soldiers were killed that day.

18 people in her convoy were attacked by hostels.

They had taken actually a wrong turn.

So they were in bad territory.

They were attacked and they fought back with all they had.

Of course they didn't have big firepower, and they lost 11 of the 18, seven were taken captive.

Lori was mortally wounded and died in captivity that day.

- We all think Lori Piestewa, we know who she is.

But so many people moved to Arizona and they may not be familiar with the name.

They know Piestewa Peak now, but they may not be familiar.

This is who she was ,first documented US female casualty of the Iraq War, and I think the first known American Indian woman to die- - First Native American woman to die in combat, right.

- [Ted] Describe the ceremony.

- The ceremony has underpinnings of Native American.

It began with her family.

It was Hopi, Navajo, and Hispanic.

Her mother's Hispanic, father's Hopi.

And her husband was Navajo.

So it involved those cultures automatically.

But there's also the intrigue of what that was for the public.

So they basically evolved from that.

I think they wanted to do one event when she passed away, but it's now 22 years we've been doing this.

And it's sort of taken in a life of its own because other families wanted to share the stories of their loved ones who died in combat or died in the military.

- I was gonna ask how it has changed over the years.

- It's changed quite a bit.

There was an element of wanting to change the name of Piestewa Peak at that time.

It had an egregious name that was demeaning to the Native American culture.

They received the backing of a lot of people from the tribes.

We have 21 Indian nations in Arizona and they were very involved in wanting to change that name.

So that was one of the secondary missions for them.

The primary mission was to, like I say, go ahead and involve other families who had no forum really to come and share the stories of their family.

And it has become very sentimental to them.

But I think a real strength to the community that we have.

- These ceremonies, especially the Native American accented ceremonies, what can people expect to see if they wanna attend?

- You know, it is beautiful.

We have Oquala, who is a Havasupai medicine man, give a spiritual blessing.

We have the Phoenix Oyate Singers who are a traditional Native American drum group.

We have the Miss Navajo who sings a national anthem in Navajo.

We have Hopi dancers, and we also have other cultures involved.

We have Ken Kosho, who's a Taiko drummer, Jeff Senor, who's basically a balladeer, Danita Green, who is a singer.

So it's involved other people now who become part of the family.

- [Ted] What kind of reaction has it had over the years?

- Well, it's amazing what people get from it.

The idea of being there in that beautiful mountain and that beautiful park.

And the city has done such a great job of renovating it.

We're just so pleased to have it and so pleased to be able to do this.

And we do get, occasionally, other performers come in from the tribes and chairman who come in who wanna say a word or two.

This year, we've got guest speakers of Claire Manning Dick, who is the national of the Gold Star Wives.

And Amy Dozier also from the Gold Star Wives.

So great speakers, just great entertainment too.

- [Ted] Where to find more information if people are interested?

- We're on Facebook.

Yeah, that's the basic.

- Piestewa Fallen Heroes Memorial on Facebook?

- Right.

- Okay.

And Jim Covarrubias, again, thank you so much for coming in and sharing this with us.

And it's amazing.

I mean, it's 20, oh goodness gracious, that's 23 years.

- 23 years.

- That seems like just yesterday.

Thank you so much for joining us.

- Thank you.

(car honking) (gentle music) - [Narrator] In the far southwestern corner of the state where Interstate 8 enters Arizona from California is a monument to a time-worn spot where countless before us have crossed the mighty Colorado.

Native tribes such as the Mojave, Kechen, and Cocopah once lived here.

Europeans arrived in 1540 when Spanish soldiers took rowboats north along the River of Good Guidance.

In 1700, Jesuit missionary Father Keno spread Christianity and made maps here after a harrowing journey from Sonora along the aptly named Devil's Highway.

In the mid 1800s, soldiers at Camp Yuma protected gold seekers bound for California, while steamboats as long as 140 feet plied the Colorado hauling goods shipped up the Gulf of California.

The railroad began crossing the river at Yuma in 1877.

It's hard for today's speedy traveler to even catch a glimpse of the Colorado River and the place where so many came to cross it, Yuma Crossing.

(dramatic music) (dramatic music continues) - And that is it for now.

I'm Ted Simons.

Thank you for joining us on this special edition of "Arizona Horizon."

You have a great evening.

(bright music)