Veterans Day at Arlington West:

(l-r) Alfredo Hernandez, Manuel Chan, and Ben Valdez remembered their friend and fellow Marine, Ramon Romero, who was killed in Iraq in 2005, at the Arlington West memorial on Veterans Day, Tuesday, November 11. All four of them were from Huntington Park High School, Class of 2004. The number of soldiers killed in Iraq was 4,193, with four killed this week, and 65,128 wounded, according to I Casualty.org on Tuesday, November 11. Arlington West is a project of Los Angeles Veterans for Peace. Every Sunday and most holiday weekends since February 2004, volunteers have set up this temporary memorial on the beach north of the Santa Monica Pier. Each white cross represents a soldier killed in Iraq. Due to space limitations on the beach, one red cross represents ten soldiers who have died. Flag-draped coffins and blue crosses represent the current week’s dead. More than a third of all the soldiers killed in Iraq have had loved ones visit the memorial and leave a memento which Veterans for Peace catalog and display weekly.