For those who could not access the newspaper article, here it is, without photo.

Holiday honors sacrifice of Las Cruces residents, veterans
BY STEVE RAMIREZ FOR THE DAILY NEWS
May 30, 2006, 04:30 pm

Harvey So Daiho Hilbert-roshi, a Zen Buddhist priest, sat quietly behind the crowd and meditated Monday at the Las Cruces Veterans Memorial Park.
Hilbert-roshi prayed for peace, but was also at the park to support his fellow veterans. He is a Vietnam veteran who, like many war veterans, has his own inner demons to wrestle with.

Monday was 40 years to the day that Hilbert-roshi was shot in the head when North Vietnamese troops overran the town of Pleiku, in the central highland region. Hilbert-roshi was then serving with U.S. Army's 25th Infantry.
"I lost most the people in my company that day," said Hilbert-roshi, a scar across his head a permanent reminder of the attack. "I'm one of the few people who can say I've reached up, been actually able to touch my brain."
Pleiku was strategically important during the Vietnam War because of the presence of U.S. military air bases. The town is at the junction of several highways, including a northern road to Kontum and a highway west to Harvey So Daiho Hilbert-roshi, of the Zen Center of Las Cruces, practices zazen, sitting meditation, at the Memorial Day services held at the Veterans Memorial Park. (Sun-News photo by Shari Vialpando) Cambodia. Hilbert-roshi suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and he said past Memorial Days have been hard.
"For me, Memorial Day has evolved," he said. "For many years it was one of great pain and suffering. But I would rather look at remembering it now where we must find a way to live peacefully. We must live in all this violence."
Hilbert-roshi said he didn't go to Veterans Memorial Park to create a disturbance or to protest Memorial Day.
"I have no agenda," he said. "I came out here to show my support for my honored friends."
Hilbert-roshi is one of three Zen Buddhist priests at the Zen Center of Las Cruces. He intends to continue attending public ceremonies for veterans as long as he has enough advance notice.
Hundreds of Las Cruces residents attended three Memorial Day ceremonies conducted at the Rio Grande, Hillcrest Memorial Gardens cemetery, and Veterans Memorial Park. From one ceremony to the next, the emphasis was the respect veterans have earned.
"The price for freedom is not free," Mayor Bill Mattiace said at the Veterans Park ceremony. "Our founding fathers prioritized our freedoms -- life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Yet, as precious as life is, your liberty and mine was purchased with the blood of patriots. And as we have learned, war is the business of youth and early middle age."
Larry Candelaria, commander of American Legion Post 10 in Las Cruces and State Vice Commander of the American Legion, said Memorial Day is much more than a day off from work, or backyard barbecues.
"Do some non-veterans really recognize the importance of the day honoring their fellow Americans killed in war," Candelaria said in comments he made at Veterans Park. "Judging from what Memorial Day has become -- simply another day off from work -- the answer it seems is sadly no.' Perhaps a reminder is due, then. And it is the duty of each and every veteran and their families to relay the message.
"Sacrifice is meaningless without remembrance. America's collective consciousness demands that all citizens recall and be aware of the deaths of their fellow countrymen during wartime."
Yvonne Lewis a member of the Mississippi National Guard who is originally from Las Cruces, took time Monday to show her love and respect for a highly-decorated U.S. Marine, her father, Juan G. Evaro, who served in the Korean War.
"Services like this are wonderful," Lewis said after she placed a wreath into the Rio Grande in memory of her father. "My dad was a good man. He was one of the most patriotic men I've ever met. My father just loved the military, and taught us to appreciate the military. He would've loved this."
Lewis was among 12 people, mostly women, who placed wreaths into the river during ceremonies there that were sponsored by District III of the Ladies Auxiliary of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Since Memorial Day 1983, riverside services have been conducted on the west bank of the Rio Grande every year.
At Hillcrest, Clara Hoffer and her daughter Peggy Hoffer visited the grave of their husband and father, Army veteran Arthur Hoffer, who died Nov. 13, 2005. Hoffer's grave was among the approximate 400 graves at Hillcrest that were decorated with small American flags.
"I'm leaving (today) to go back to South Dakota for a month, where I'm originally from," Clara Hoffer said as tears began to well in eyes. "This will be the first trip I'll be making without him."
Hoffer said she "had to" visit the side-by-side graves of her husband and daughter, Jacqueline Rae (Hoffer) Smith, who died May 4, 2004. "I was thinking on the way here how they always played spoons. They were always fighting over the last spoon. It made me wonder, are they fighting over that last spoon in heaven."
Arthur Hoffer served in World War II burying Holocaust victims. Peggy Hoffer said her father rarely told his children about his war experiences.
"There were photo albums he hid from us," Peggy Hoffer said. "Whenever we asked him about it all he would say was those pictures tell you everything.'"
Clara Hoffer still has vivid memories of her four brothers serving in World War II.
"My job every Sunday was to write to all four of them," Hoffer said. "I still remember my mother walking the floor all night, praying, praying. She remembered the couple who lived nearby. They had five sons in the Navy and lost them all."
Steve Ramirez can be reached at sramirez@lcsun-news.com