Flag presentation for fallen soldiers imparts poignant lesson for Las Vegas teens — PHOTOS

The learning occurred during a powerful presentation of “national remembrance flags” by members of the school’s cross-country team to the parents of two young Americans who died serving their country.

The event packed an emotional wallop, both because of the somber flag presentation and the words of George Lutz.

Lutz, backed by big-screen photos of the fallen soldiers — Army Pfc. Alejandro Varela of Fernley, Nevada, and Marine Lance Cpl. John Charles West of Ohio — drew on his experience of losing his own son in combat in Iraq to drive home the importance of the words “honor” and “remember” to his young audience.

‘I THINK I CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE’

The founder of the Honor and Remember nonprofit that created the flags, Lutz recalled the conversation he had with his son, Tony, married with two children and two years of college under his belt, when he decided to join the Army in 2003.

“I said, ‘Tony, are you crazy? Don’t you know there’s a war going on?’” Lutz told the students. “But he looked at me and said, ‘Dad, I think I can make a difference.’

“What can you say to that, right? … So I was proud of him. I said, ‘Atta boy. I’m going to be proud of you. Keep your head down.’”

Two years later, uniformed officers arrived at Lutz’s door and informed him that Army Cpl. George Anthony Lutz II had been killed by a sniper’s bullet in Fallujah, Iraq, after only a few weeks in the war zone.

“Those are the words that a parent never wants to hear, right?” he said, stating the obvious.

“You can imagine that you guys are just getting ready to get on with your lives and go on to college, go into the military, whatever decisions you make. But you feel like you’re invincible, like nothing can happen, like the whole world is ahead of you. And it is.”

Only then, in an instant, it wasn’t.

Lutz said he coped with his grief by installing a flag pole as tall as the one on the Spring Valley campus to fly the biggest American flag he could find.

“Because I was proud that he gave his life, and I wanted everybody that came by to see that I was a proud American,” he said.

And that brought Lutz to the lesson he hoped to impart.

‘WHAT DO WE … REMEMBER?’

“What do we do as a nation to remember? … The reason we have these freedoms is because of these men and women. And it’s not just them. It’s the families that are still here, still breathing, hoping and praying and crying that somebody doesn’t forget.”

With that, members of track coach Jean Rees’ Spring Valley cross-country team unveiled the two red-white-blue-gold flags, purchased for $700 with the proceeds of a car wash event, and presented them to Pfc. Varela’s father, Roger, and Lance Cpl. West’s mother, Frances.

West died on active duty in September 2010 while serving at Cherry Point, North Carolina. He was buried in Jamestown, Ohio.

Varela, a 19-year-old infantryman from Fernley, in Lyon County east of Reno, was on a mission with fellow members of his cavalry company from Fort Hood, Texas, to find three missing American soldiers in Iraq in 2007 when his Bradley fighting vehicle ran over a roadside bomb in western Baghdad. Varela and five others were killed.

He is one of 79 U.S. military personnel with strong ties to Nevada who have died fighting overseas since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

After hugs and applause and with his voice cracking, Roger Varela said, “Thank you for taking the time to come out here and honoring not just my son, but the West son also.”

By his side was another parent, Esteban Sanchez, who had lost a child to military service.

“They lost their son, too,” Varela said. “I know sooner or later they’ll get one of these flags.”

Then he thanked Lutz for putting into words some of the conflicting emotions he has gone through since his son’s death.

“What George has spoken, he has spoken from the heart,” he said.

Contact Keith Rogers at krogers@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0308. Follow @KeithRogers2 on Twitter.