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thedrifter
02-19-07, 12:46 PM
‘Morenci 9’ Marine kept it simple

By Walter Mares, Copper Era Managing Editor
Most people probably have never seen anything quite like it. Mike Cran-ford’s funeral was honest and to the point. There were no frills.

That is how he said he wanted it, and that is how it happened when Cranford, a former U.S. Marine, Vietnam combat veteran and one of three “Morenci 9” survivors was laid to rest Feb. 15 at the Franklin Cemetery.
Monday, February 19, 2007

What neither Cranford nor his family could have counted on was the number of people at the service. One mourner said he lost count of the people present “at 300.”

There was music, but hardly what most would consider traditional. “Born To be Wild,” a hard-charging song by the Vietnam Era rock band Steppenwolf opened the burial ceremony. It was only fitting as it is an anthem for Harley-Davidson motorcycle devotees, which Cranford was.

In fact, Cranford’s casket was transported from a Safford funeral home to Franklin in the back of a white pickup truck. His bike followed in the back of a gray truck. A long procession of fellow bikers and regular vehicles made the chilly, 45-mile trip that began at 8 a.m.

Cranford died of an apparent heart attack Feb. 12.

An American flag was the only thing adorning his coffin. At the ceremony’s end, when the casket was lowered into the grave, one pal and fellow Harley rider tossed in a copy of Biker magazine, “In case you get bored and need something to read.” Another tossed in a can of Bud Light beer and said, “In case you get thirsty, Mike.”

American Legion Post 28 Color Guard provided a rifle salute. The playing of an echoing “Taps” led by bugler Jacob Herrera drew audible sobs from the crowd. There was total silence as the flag on the coffin was folded and then presented to Cranford’s widow, Joyce, by Post 28 Commander Abe Munoz. Joyce, stoic until that moment, pressed the flag against her face and cried.

Mark Vallejo, a close friend of the Cranfords, officiated over the ceremony. Vallejo and a small army of men and women in full leathers stood by the casket or mixed with the rest of the crowd. Many were former Marines or served in other branches of the military.

Vallejo told of the legendary Morenci 9. They were nine 1966 Morenci High School graduates who, right after graduation, joined the Marines on the buddy system. Of the nine, only Cranford, Joe Sorrel-man and Leroy Cisneros made it back alive. Cisneros and Sorrelman were at the funeral and stood together during the ceremony.

The story of the Morenci 9 is, in fact, the stuff of legend. They were written about in national newspapers and magazines. They are included in books about the Vietnam War and that era. They were one of the reasons Greenlee County had one of the highest, if not the highest, per capita rate in the nation of those killed in Vietnam.

Not all of the Morenci 9 died at the same time. There was a succession of funerals that left the community reeling.

At the funeral’s end, Robert S. Delis, a former Marine, who is with the Marine Corps League in Casa Grande and a member of the Ira Hayes American Legion Post in Sacaton, honored Cranford by presenting Joyce Cranford a Native American Medal of Honor.

After the crowd left, Cranford’s fellow bikers remained at the gravesite. Someone shouted, “Fire ‘em up!” Every Harley was started, and engines were cranked up high, producing a thundering noise that lasted about a minute.

It was the final salute to the man Kody Davis said was “everybody’s friend, everybody’s father.”

Ellie