People honor “forgotten soldiers” at Las Cruces cemetery

On this Memorial Day Weekend, people in Las Cruces are honoring what are sometimes known as the “forgotten soldiers”.

Captain Zavala Patton was at St. Joseph’s cemetery Sunday. She says she cares deeply about our nation’s history.

“With out our history we are nothing,” Patton said. “We need to know who we are.”

The cemetery is 200-300 years old. Soldiers in the Spanish American War are buried there.

“There should be some from perhaps even earlier,” Patton said.

Some headstones are nearly un-recognizable. Other’s are merely a wooden cross.

“There are very few identified here,” Patton said. “We have some from the previous wars from when this area was not a state yet.”

On Sunday, volunteers placed American flags on the headstones of our fallen veterans. But there are some buried there, that we might not even know about.

Patton says that’s why it’s important to continue teaching our history.

“They are part of our history and they remind us of where we’ve been,” Patton said.