As part of this Monday's Memorial Day services in Alliance, the traditional service honoring all military men and women will be held at 11 a.m. at the Box Butte County Courthouse monument. Then, from noon until six at the city park shelter house, the Ron Coker Memorial celebration will take place.

Coker was a 1965 graduate of Alliance High School who was killed while serving in Vietnam on March 24, 1969. He was 21. He is buried at the Fairview Cemetery northeast of Alliance.

Coker was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor posthumously for sacrificing his life while trying to safe a comrade while under enemy fire.

Coker's family says Chief Master Sergeant Robert M. Quinn of Buckley Air Force Base in Colorado has replaced all of the medals and ribbons Coker received. The originals were lost in the Rapid City Flood of 1972, when the family's house was destroyed.

Following the courthouse program, a caravan will drive to the new State Veteran’s Military Cemetery southeast of Alliance, where County Road 57 from State Highway Two to the cemetery has been dedicated as Ronald L. Coker Lane. The public is then invited to the Alliance City Park Shelter House, where a special presentation will take place at 2 p.m. At least nine of Coker's Marine comrades who fought with him in Vietnam are scheduled to be present and many are expected to share their memories.

Coker's rank and medals will be displayed on a USMC dress uniform, which is also being replaced.

On a related note, Memorial Day services will take place in Hemingford at 11 a.m. at the American Legion. The guest speaker will be Nebraska Veterans Cemetery of Alliance Administrator Allen Pannell.