DA Dan Dow delivers moving tribute as community gathers to remember local and national military sacrifice
PASO ROBLES — On Monday, May 26, the Paso Robles District Cemetery welcomed the community for its annual Memorial Day ceremony — a tradition dating back to 1980, when patriotic members of the Cemetery Board first sought to honor veterans on Memorial Day and Veterans Day.
This year’s event featured heartfelt tributes, patriotic music, and a keynote address by San Luis Obispo County District Attorney Dan Dow, who was recently promoted to colonel in the California Army National Guard. The ceremony was emceed by fellow veteran Chris Rohrberg, who served with Dow in Iraq.
Dow, who grew up in Livermore, Maine, recalled Memorial Day as his community’s biggest celebration of the year.
Photos by Derek Luff/PRP
“The Memorial Day parade was an extremely patriotic event that I really loved as a child,” Dow said. “That annual parade is where I first learned to respect the American flag by putting my hand over my heart and it’s where my parents taught me to thank the Vietnam veterans who had only recently come home and were struggling with the post-war effects of their combat missions.”
With Dow’s hometown having rich history dating back to the American Revolutionary War, he grew up going to the local cemetery to honor the soldiers who had died by laying wreaths and firing cannons, and visiting the graves of military veterans from every war and conflict as far back as 1776. Having this exposure made a long-lasting impact on Dow.
“When I was 6 years old in 1976, we celebrated the bi-centennial of the birth of our nation. That year’s Memorial Day parade was bigger and better than any others that I remember,” Dow shared. “Fourth of July celebrations were fun, but by comparison, Memorial Day always stood out to me as the most important holiday and the one we most looked forward to.”
He continued, “You see, in communities like Livermore, Maine — who were directly affected by the reality that freedom is not free, rather it was purchased by the precious blood of our countrymen — Memorial Day was a day of honor, remembrance, mourning, and thankfulness. It was also a day to celebrate our American freedom that was purchased by the blood and selfless sacrifice of those who gave their lives in battle for the United States of America.”
Dow continued to share stories of servicemembers who lost their lives in different wars: Lt. Nathan Hale, a Yale-educated teacher turned patriot spy, was captured and executed by the British in 1776, famously declaring, “I only regret that I have but one life to give to my country.” In World War II, Capt. Benjamin Salomon, a dentist turned front-line surgeon, heroically defended wounded soldiers during a massive Japanese assault on Saipan, killing over 90 enemy troops before being fatally shot — earning a posthumous Medal of Honor decades later. Closer to home, Paso Robles native and Specialist Kenneth Dale Schwartz was killed in Vietnam in 1968, just shy of his 21st birthday, after bravely serving with the 25th Infantry Division. He is among the 58,220 Americans who gave their lives during the conflict and is buried in the Paso Robles District Cemetery.
Dow then shared some more recent stories of military servicemembers who died while serving overseas in hostile areas. On Jan. 28, 2024, three U.S. Army Reserve soldiers were killed and over 40 others injured in a drone attack at Tower 22, a logistics support base in Jordan near the Syrian border. The soldiers were deployed as part of Operation Inherent Resolve, a U.S. and coalition mission aimed at defeating ISIS, and Operation Spartan Shield, which supports regional stability in the Middle East. The attack occurred when a one-way unmanned aerial vehicle struck the base’s housing units while troops were sleeping. The fallen soldiers — Sgt. William Jerome Rivers, Spc. Kennedy Ladon Sanders, and Spc. Breonna Alexsondria Moffett, all from Georgia’s 718th Engineer Company — were posthumously promoted and honored for their sacrifice.
Photos by Derek Luff/PRP
“Approximately 1,500,000 military servicemembers have paid with their lives so that you and I could experience living in a country where we have freedom of speech; freedom of religion (faith); freedom of travel; freedom of enterprise/business,” Dow said. “It is up to each and every one of us to tell our children so that they will tell their children and so that we never ever take our freedom for granted.”
In addition to Dow’s address, the service included the Pledge of Allegiance led by Boy Scouts Troop 92, a performance by the Cuesta Concord Chorus, and the reading of the war poem “In Flanders Fields” by Salvador Antonio Cota with VFW Post 10965. The poem inspired the use of poppies in relation to fallen soldiers.
According to the American Legion Auxiliary, after World War I, red poppies flourished in war-torn Europe, thriving in soil enriched by lime from battlefield rubble. Inspired by this, Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae’s poem “In Flanders Fields” helped establish the poppy as a symbol of the blood shed by fallen soldiers and continues to honor soldiers killed in battle.
As is tradition, volunteers placed American flags at the gravesites of veterans in the days leading up to the event.
“I’m a 30-year veteran of the Army and Army National Guard. I’ve been deployed several times, and, unfortunately, I’ve lost people,” American Legion Post 50 Paso Robles Commander Chris Rohrberg shared with Paso Robles Press. “When we do the flags the Saturday before the ceremonies … I’m starting to know more and more of the people or knew the people that are laid to rest there. For me, as a as a military person, it has a special meaning.”
There are many veteran organizations in San Luis Obispo County and many in North County itself. There are American Legion posts in Paso Robles, Templeton, and San Luis Obispo, and Veteran of Foreign War (VFW) posts in Paso Robles and Atascadero. There is a satellite office for the county’s veteran services at the Paso Robles Veteran Center.
To find more information on SLO County veteran services, visit slocounty.ca.gov/Departments/Veterans-Services.aspx
