Residents Waiting Approximately 1 Hour

Los Alamitos School District Bus Driver Gave Up Lunch Hour To Attend:

RPMT Members Arrived & Handed Out Flags To Crowd:

Approximately 2,000 Los Alamitos High School Students Waited To Honor Community Hero:

Sheriff Motorcycle Escort Began:

Southern California Patriot Guard Riders who always escort fallen military heros:

THE LOS ALAMITOS COMMUNITY REMEMBERS LOCAL ARMY RANGER

(Los Alamitos, CA) – The City of Los Alamitos, the Los Alamitos Unified School District, and the Joint Forces Training Base invites the community to honor the life of Army Ranger Sgt. Thomas R. MacPherson on the Joint Forces Training Base Army Airfield on Thursday, October 25 at 11:30 a.m., with planeside honors, commonly called a “Hero Mission.”  Community members planning to attend the Hero Mission should arrive by 10:30 a.m. to park and walk to the Airfield.

Sgt. MacPherson was killed during combat operations in support of Operation Enduring Freedom on October 12, 2012.

Sgt. MacPherson, who was 26 years old and a graduate of Los Alamitos High School, was killed by small arms fire in the Ghazni Province in Afghanistan as he led an assault against an enemy position, U.S. Army officials said. Los Alamitos High School counselor Tina Hereen remembers Sgt. MacPherson as, “An amazing young man filled with a contagious smile and his character was one that you would hope others including your own children, could emulate.   I will never forget his genuineness and feeling of him caring more about how my day was when he came into my office than the reverse.“ 

MacPherson was a team leader assigned to Delta Company, 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash. This was his fourth deployment to Afghanistan and he had also previously served one deployment in Iraq.

Sgt. MacPherson is survived by his wife, Claudia MacPherson, and their son, Brayden, of Tacoma, Wash., and his parents, Troy and Diona MacPherson of Long Beach.