Until this past Veterans Day, Sgt. Charles Bebus, Staff Sgt. David Stanley, Captain Richard Halpin and Lt. Larry Stevens were just names on bronze plaques in the the flower garden surrounding the Hermosa Beach Veterans Memorial Sun Dial. The four plaques had been found scattered around town and moved to the memorial in 2009. But by then, the stories behind the names had been forgotten.
A fifth plaque moved to the garden bore a brief poem titled “The Flag.” The poem was attributed to Elizabeth Gilbreath Talley, but her story had also been lost.
Finally, two weeks ago at the Hermosa Veterans Memorial 20th Annual Veterans Day Candlelight Service, emcee Michael Flaherty and Veterans Memorial committee chairman Steve Crecy were able to announce that the lost stories of the veterans and “The Flag” author had been found.
The stories of the forgotten veterans began coming to light in 2009 whenHermosa Beach Rotarian Gary Clark noticed a concrete block in a tree planter in front of the Rotary Club at Valley Park.
Out of curiosity, he flipped it over and discovered the block served as the base for a bronze plaque.
The plaque read, in bold capital letters;
THE FREEDOM TREE
WITH THE VISION OF UNIVERSAL FREEDOM
FOR ALL MANKIND
THIS TREE IS DEDICATED TO
S/SGT DAVID STANLEY DEMMON
AND ALL
PRISONERS OF WAR
AND
MISSING IN ACTION
1972
Clark took the plaque to his cabinetry shop on Valley Drive and showed it to his son Casey, who had recently been discharged from the Navy. Casey had served as a crew chief rescue swimmer.
“As soon as I saw it, I recognized it as one of two plaques that were at Hermosa Valley School when I was a kid there,” recalled Casey, who attended the school from kindergarten through eighth grade. He graduated in 1995. “I remember the plaques because my friend Noah and I used to argue over which of the vets on the plaques [SSG David Demmon and SGT Charles Bebus] had the higher rank. They were in front of a couple trees, next to the bike cages.”
The following day, with permission from the school district superintendent and assistance from a Hermosa Valley School custodian, Casey dug up the second plaque at the grammar school.
Then he told his neighbor Steve Crecy about the plaques. Crecy was chair of the Hermosa Beach Veteran’s Memorial Sundial committee.
About this same time, councilman JR Reviczky and public works supervisor Mike Flaherty, both Vietnam veterans and both instrumental in building the sundial memorial, decided to gather up three other Vietnam memorial plaques that had been neglected in a planter next to Citibank in downtown Hermosa Beach.
Two bore the names of Captain Richard Halpin and Lt. Larry Stevens. The third had Elizabeth Talley’s poem.
Flaherty wanted to be sure all the plaques were installed at the Veteran’s memorial before his impending retirement. So he walked over to Clark’s cabinetry shop to retrieve the two plaques the Clarks had found.
“When Gary handed me the plaques, he said ‘You better do a good job with them,’” Flaherty recalled. Flaherty assure him he would and made good on his promise.
Flaherty and fellow public works colleagues poured concrete bases for each of the plaques, routed them out to fit slabs of yellow stone and then mounted the bronze plaques on the stone.
On Veteran’s Day, 2009, the five plaques were rededicated at their new home in the Veteran’s memorial garden.
But still, other than names and ranks, nothing was known about the veterans memorialized on the plaques, nor about the “The Flag” author.
Last November, Crecy noticed mention in a veterans newsletter of a Freedom Tree plaque in Riverside for a Captain Richard Halpin.
Crecy knew a Kate Halpin through his veterans activities and contacted her. Captain Halpin, Crecy learned, was Kate’s brother. He had graduated from Loyola University. Crecy invited the Halpin family to visit the Hermosa Veterans Memorial. On their visit the family told Crecy that Captain Halpin was 25 years old and was flying his 130th mission aboard an AC130 Spectre gunship when it was shot down over Laos on March 29, 1972. All 13 aboard the plane were reported missing in action and presumed dead. Captain Halpin’s remains were finally recovered in 1986.
A story about the Halpin family’s visit in the Daily Breeze gave the names on the other four plaques. The story was read by Torrance Mitch Levine, who runs findawarveteran.com.Over the next few months he unearthed the their stories, as well as Elizabeth Tally’s.
Army Staff Sergeant David Demmon was flying a small, twin engine OV1C observation aircraft when his plane disappeared on June 9, 1965. His body was never found.
Sgt. Charles Bebus, 21, was also in the Air Force. His plane was shot down December 21, 1972. His body wasn’t recovered until December 1988.
Lt. Larry James Stevens, 27, took off in a Navy A4C Skyhawk from the aircraft carrier Coral Sea on February 14, 1969 and was shot down while attacking a Viet Cong convoy in Laos. His body was never recovered.
Elizabeth Talley, a Hermosa Beach resident, is believed to have donated the money for the plaques. But why these four veteran’s were selected for honor in Hermosa remains a mystery. Lt. Stevens was born in Hawthorne. But the others were not from the South Bay.
Talley devoted the latter years of her life to helping Vietnam veterans during a time when the war was unpopular and its veterans shown little respect.
In a letter to Crecy, Talley’s grandson Benjamin Talley, III, recalled, “The bestowing of this plaque with Elizabeth’s own poem was my grandmother’s proudest moment. Being recognized as a patriot in the community of Hermosa Beach, where she spent her best and last years was the apex of her life.” ER
