The Keepers of the Memorial

Every first Saturday of the month, shortly after sunrise, two Vietnam veterans arrive at the corner of PCH and Pier Avenue with buckets, rags, and quiet purpose. 

For more than three decades, Steve Crecy and Mike Flaherty have tended to the Hermosa Beach Veterans Memorial, washing its black granite surface, pulling weeds from the surrounding garden, and hosing down the walkway around the structure.

The work isn’t glamorous. But for Crecy and Flaherty, it’s sacred. They helped build the memorial in 1992 and have cared for it ever since.

Each November, they organize the city’s Veterans Day ceremony with the same sense of duty, choosing the keynote speaker, coordinating the color guard, and ensuring every detail reflects the respect they feel for those who served. “We just want to make sure nobody forgets,” said Crecy, whose older brothers served in the Air Force and Marine Corps.

When Crecy and Flaherty returned from Vietnam in 1968, there were no parades or public thanks, but plenty of anti-war sentiment. “You didn’t want to say, ‘Hey, I just got back from Vietnam,’” Crecy recalled. “You just wanted to move on.”

Then, in 1992, a fellow veteran named Ken Marks stood up at a city meeting and asked why Hermosa Beach didn’t have a veteran’s memorial. Crecy, who served on the Parks and Recreation Commission, and Flaherty, who worked for Public Works, looked at each other and something clicked. “The light bulb went off,” Crecy said. “‘Yeah, let’s do it.’”

From Memories to Memorial

Flaherty came from a family steeped in service. His father had been a Navy officer, his mother a surgical nurse in the Navy, and his uncle earned both the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart. But when he came home from Vietnam, he kept his distance from organized veterans’ groups.

“My experience was, and I’m embarrassed to say this, but they didn’t do anything but sit around and grumble about how terrible things were, and drink,” he said. “The moment a memorial conversation started was when it hit me, that I could actually participate in something positive.”

They formed a small committee and began raising funds, selling T-shirts outside the post office, and setting up a booth at the Fiesta. “We were hawking T-shirts anywhere we could,” Flaherty said with a laugh. “We never took a penny from the city.”

They ended up collecting $25,000, enough to design and build a lasting tribute. With city approval and the help of local contractors, they tore up an old concrete pad on the lawn of the Community Center and created something meaningful in its place.

On May 21, 1994, the Hermosa Beach Veterans Memorial was dedicated, a 12-foot-high granite sundial engraved with the words “veterans are timeless.” 

Every day, the shadow of the U.S. flag passes over an etching of each branch of service, Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, and Coast Guard.

“It’s our way of giving back,” Crecy said. “We owe it to those who didn’t make it.”

Vietnam Service

Crecy, who volunteered for the draft, trained at Fort Ord and later at radio school in Georgia before being deployed near Saigon and the Mekong Delta. He maintained radios and base phone systems, even operating a ham radio link that allowed soldiers to call home through the Red Cross. “You’d get a guy on the line with his mom back home. It meant everything,” he said.

His engineering unit built bridges, cleared jungle, and endured occasional mortar and rocket attacks. “You’d grab your rifle and hit the bunker,” he said.

Even though Flaherty’s parents served in the Navy, he chose the Marines. After Marine boot camp at Parris Island, he was deployed to the Da Nang area near the DMZ. There he supervised operations in a new computer division, the first of its kind in the service. “No one had ever seen a computer before.” 

His team tracked inventory, logged incidents, and managed supplies as the corps doubled its troops on the ground. Technology was advancing so rapidly that “every admiral, general, and celebrity would stop by, even WWII General Omar Bradley,” he recalled.

Flaherty also made courier trips between Da Nang and Okinawa, carrying sensitive information. His first and last days in Vietnam were marked by incoming fire. “You could hear the mortars coming in,” Flaherty said. “You just dig with whatever you can find.”

A Form of Healing

For them, building the memorial so many years later became a form of healing. “I didn’t know it at the time, but it calmed me down,” Flaherty said. 

“It was therapy, and we didn’t even know it. We just enjoyed doing it,” Crecy said.

Over the years, their committee has grown to include veterans from the Korean War, World War II, the Persian Gulf, Iraq, and Afghanistan. “We’re recruiting as we go,” Flaherty said. 

After covering the war in Afghanistan, I wanted to do my part to show respect for those who have served our country. For almost a year now, I have joined Crecy, Flaherty and other veterans and volunteers who clean the memorial, weed the garden, and share their stories.

Seeing Crecy, Flaherty and their fellow veterans at work, their comradery and devotion, I realized service doesn’t end when the uniform comes off, it just takes new forms.

Every town should be so lucky to have men like Crecy and Flaherty, humble veterans who remind us that real gratitude doesn’t come in a speech or a parade, but in quiet acts that honor sacrifice and keep the spirit of service alive.

GALLERY

Elka Worner is a community volunteer, City Commissioner, journalist, and Hermosa Beach local. She contributes occasional columns to The Hermosa Review, and publishes her own regular newsletter titled 'Elka's Update’ which you can subscribe to for free.

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