Hello from Post 519 in Palm Springs, Calif.! My name is Lee Wilson Jr. and I've taught World and U.S. History at Cathedral City High School, Palm Springs Unified School District, since 1997. I'm a member of our local VFW Post 1534 in Desert Hot Springs, DAV 66, and serve locally as the historian for American Legion Owen Coffman Post 519. Sadly, I am the only teacher in the Coachella Valley to have lost two former students on the War on Terror: PFC Ming Sun, CCHS class of 2004 KIA Ramadi, Iraq January 2007, and CWO2 Suresh Abayasekara Krause, CCHS class of 2001 KIA Kandahar, Afghanistan August 2012. Having served in the Marine Corps, I felt an obligation to honor their service and sacrifice as well as honor their Gold Star families. Our local teacher organization, the Palm Springs Teachers Association, has been most gracious in providing support and participation in the Palm Springs Veterans Day Parade. Roughly around the time Suresh was killed in action, I became the historian for our post. I floated the idea that we should help sponsor some sort of hometown hero banner program to honor Ming, Suresh and all the local fallen heroes from all our wars. Our post was built in 1948 and our memorial wall contains the names of the 16 local residents killed during World War II. I was surprised that there were no records of who these men were, where they fought, where they are buried, their branch of service, etc. So if I was going to honor Ming and Suresh with banners, I felt we needed to honor everybody. Over the years I've researched these names and learned about all 27 KIA/MIA from World War II, Korea and Vietnam, plus Ming and Suresh. I began to find sponsors for the banners. Several groups from our post helped to pay the costs of banners including our color guard, Auxiliary and Riders. Several years later, we now have fallen hero banners at the Palm Springs American Legion, and on display downtown during Veterans Day, Fourth of July and Memorial Day. Each of these Fallen Heroes Banners honors a local fallen hero. I'm still trying to find photos for a couple, but at least they're remembered. Of the local 27 KIA/MIA, 16 were graduates of the Palm Springs Unified School District. As a teacher, I know that each of these heroes had somebody who taught them patriotism, citizenship and service to country. It is an honor to have had that privilege and to teach men like Ming Sun and Suresh Abayasekara Krause.