Among Pasadena’s Fallen, Four Received Highest Military Honors

Among the hundreds of fallen military service members Pasadena will honor at its Memorial Day commemoration Monday are four native sons who made the ultimate sacrifice and received the nation’s highest military decorations for heroism in combat.

The ceremony, scheduled for 10:30 a.m. on Monday, May 26 in Memorial Park, 85 E. Holly St., will be conducted by the City of Pasadena and the Pasadena Veterans Day Committee.

The four posthumously honored heroes received the Medal of Honor, Distinguished Service Cross and Silver Star — the military’s top awards for valor.

The event is open to the public, and all community members are invited to join in remembrance and reflection during this solemn ceremony.

“There’s an African proverb that says: ‘As long as you speak my name, I shall live forever,'” Captain William Paparian of the California State Guard, a former Pasadena mayor who will serve as master of ceremonies, will say. “On Memorial Day 2025 in Pasadena, we will speak the names of the sons and daughters of Pasadena who gave the last full measure of devotion.”

The ceremony will include the reading of 320 names of the men and women from Pasadena who lost their lives in battle, which will be led by Vice Mayor Jess Rivas and Cadets from the U.S. Naval Sea Cadet Corps Pasadena Division and the Blair High School Army Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps.

Among them: Sergeant Joe Ryo Hayashi, the only Japanese-American soldier to receive the Medal of Honor during World War II, despite facing intense prejudice.

Hayashi’s Distinguished Service Cross was upgraded to the Medal of Honor following a review in the late 1990s, and President Bill Clinton presented the award posthumously on June 21, 2000. A Pasadena resident, Hayashi, enlisted at a relocation camp in Wyoming.

Master Sergeant Thomas Joseph Sanchez received the Distinguished Service Cross for extraordinary heroism while serving with Detachment A-108, 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne), 1st Special Forces during military operations in Vietnam.

First Lieutenant Mark Niggol Enari was awarded the Silver Star for gallantry in action in Vietnam. Camp Enari, the Fourth Infantry Division’s base camp sitting at the foot of Dragon Mountain in Vietnam’s Central Highlands, was named in his honor in early 1967 and retained that name as long as American forces remained in Vietnam.

Lieutenant Montrose Graham McCormick of the U.S. Navy received two Silver Star medals for submarine warfare actions during World War II. Serving as Assistant Approach Officer and Torpedo Data Computer Operator, McCormick was honored for gallantry during submarine war patrols in enemy-controlled waters, with one medal for 1943 actions and a second for operations aboard the USS Cobia (USS-245) from June 26 to August 14, 1944.

Chaplain Pedro M. Trinidad Lieutenant Commander (LCDR), USNR will deliver the invocation and benediction at the public ceremony.