Cheryl Rex hasn’t planned what she’ll say during her speech at the unveiling of a Gold Star memorial monument in Rancho Cucamonga on Memorial Day, but said she’s confident her son, Lance Cpl. Dylan Merola, will help her.
Merola, 20, was among the 13 service members killed on Aug. 26, 2021, when a suicide bomber attacked the Abbey Gate at the Hamid Karzai International Airport as the last American troops withdrew from Afghanistan. The attack also killed approximately 170 civilians waiting to pass through the gate.
Nine of the dead, and many of the other injured Americans, were part of the 2nd Battalion/1st Marines at Camp Pendleton. Also from Southern California were Cpl. Hunter Lopez, 22, of Indio, and Cpl. Kareem M. Nikoui, 20, of Norco. Staff Sgt. Taylor Hoover, 31, who grew up in Daggett County, Utah, lived with his fiancée in Aliso Viejo.
Rex has since spoken publicly, even before Congress, as investigations into the attack have unfolded.
“Dylan does guide my speeches,” Rex said. “I’m not a public speaker, but somehow, some way, I’ve gained the strength to talk about my son.”
Her speech on Memorial Day will be at Rancho Cucamonga’s Central Park where she was first confronted with speaking to hundreds during a candlelight memorial held for Merola.
“During that speech, I didn’t know what I was supposed to talk about,” she recalled.
As she started speaking, the microphone suddenly cut off, leaving Rex unsure what to say next or do, she remembers. After nearly breaking down, she instead took a beat to compose herself and looked up at the sky and smiled, she said, realizing that her son was likely telling her, “OK, mom, you can get through this.”
She said she’ll look to her son again for guidance as she introduces the new monument — the first of its kind in San Bernardino County.
“I’ll ask him how I should do this, and I’ll think of honoring him in the best way I possibly can,” she said, adding her message will be about how the monument is a tribute to all families who have lost a service member. “It will be about what the project was meant for and to honor all who have lost their lives for us to be here.”
A sense of purpose
The effort to build the monument for Gold Star parents has been part of her long journey trying to come to grips with her son’s death, Rex said. It is the largest project undertaken by Legends Live Forever, the nonprofit founded by Rex and her parents in 2023 to honor Merola’s memory and continue his sense of service.
The foundation has also held annual community events and awarded eight $1,000 scholarships to high school seniors who compete by writing an essay on overcoming challenges while pursuing higher education.
Rex said she realized there were many more Gold Star parents living in her town and the surrounding communities than she would ever have believed.
“I wanted to honor their children as well,” she said. “I wanted to do something to honor all of them.”
Working on the monument project was cathartic and gave Rex and her family — her parents, grandparents, her daughter and her oldest son, who joined the Marines after his brother was killed — a purpose to focus on.
“There were times when it was very challenging because we didn’t realize how much was entailed in doing a project like this,” she said. “My parents agreed they’d help me do this, and we gathered a committee together and had to find our own contractor, who had a connection with the landscaper.”
While working on the monument was a purpose, it wasn’t instant relief, Rex said, partly because of the national attention that has remained on the bombing as questions continued about how the drawdown of American troops played out.
She has participated in the congressional inquiries and expects to travel to the nation’s capital to give testimony again now that President Donald Trump has ordered a “comprehensive” review of the United States’ exit from Afghanistan.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also recently announced that the Department of Defense will conduct a “comprehensive and sweeping investigation” into the decisions at the time and also that the medals awarded to the service members killed that day will be re-evaluated for valor because the results of a 2021 internal review had caused several to be “inappropriately downgraded.”
Rex’s fight started for accountability, but she began to feel she “was being pulled in every which direction,” she said. “I was traveling to D.C. and back, and when it got very political, that’s when I stepped out of it because it wasn’t the purpose of what I was fighting for on my end for my son, which was for accountability.”
Instead, her nonprofit helped her bring her mission back to her own community and gather people around her who cared about service members and their continuing sacrifices.
“The purpose is to have everyone included and keep moving forward to honor Dylan,” she said. “Instead of sitting back and always being in deep grief, I wanted to give back to others. That’s how Dylan was. He gave back to everyone else before himself.”
“We were giving back in Dylan’s name and in his honor, it just shows who Dylan was,” Rex added.
By doing that, she said the foundation’s work created community not only within her own family, but also among others in her city and the Gold and Blue Star families in Southern California.
Among those who became involved and helped spread the word of the monument’s creation to other parents who have lost children in military service is Evelyn Baltierra of Corona, whose son, Pfc. Bryan Baltierra, 18, was among the eight Marines and a sailor who died when their Amphibious Assault Vehicle sank during pre-deployment training off San Clemente Island in 2020.
Since her own son’s death, Baltierra has been active in making sure the families of fallen service members are not forgotten, and said she recognizes how important monuments like Rex’s project are.
“These sacred spaces are more than stone and structure; they are lasting tributes to our fallen heroes, ensuring their sacrifice is never forgotten, and giving families a place of remembrance, reflection and honor,” she said. “They also serve as powerful reminders to future generations of the true cost of freedom.”
A two-paneled black granite monument dedicated to Gold Star families will be unveiled on Memorial Day in a 9 a.m. ceremony at Central Park in Rancho Cucamonga. The monument was spearheaded by Cheryl Rex, mother of Lance Cpl. Dylan Merola, a Marine corporal killed while standing guard at the Kabul airport during the last hours of the U.S. troop withdrawal on Aug. 26, 2021.
Photographs of seven marines out of 13 that were killed in Afghanistan on Aug. 16, 2021, are displayed at the highway overpass dedication ceremony of Dylan Merola in Rancho Cucamonga on August 26, 2023. (Photo by Anjali Sharif-Paul, The Sun/SCNG)
Cheryl Rex becomes emotional as she speaks to the crowd about her late marine son Dylan Merola at his dedication ceremony in Rancho Cucamonga on August 26, 2023. Merola and 12 other marines were killed in Afghanistan on Aug. 16, 2021. (Photo by Anjali Sharif-Paul, The Sun/SCNG)
Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Dylan Merola in Afghanistan the morning of an attack that killed him and 12 other service members in August 2021. Merola, who was assigned to 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force out of Camp Pendleton, was one of 13 U.S. service members killed in a suicide bombing at the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan. (Photo Courtesy of Cheryl Rex)
Lance Cpl. Dylan Merola, seen here while on deployment to the Middle East as part of a special crisis response force, was one of 11 U.S. military service members killed in the August 2021 suicide bombing at the Kabul airport. (Photo courtesy of Cheryl Rex)
Cheryl Rex, mother of Marine Dylan Merola who was killed while serving in Afghanistan on Aug. 26, 2021, holds his Purple Heart surrounded by Dylan’s favorite flower, sunflowers, in Rancho Cucamonga on Thursday, May 21, 2026. Rex helped in getting the Gold Star Memorial Monument built which will be officially unveiled on Memorial Day at 9 a.m. at Central Park in Rancho Cucamonga. (Photo by Will Lester, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG)
Thirteen service members were killed in the Kabul airport bombing on Aug. 26, 2021. Top Row from left: Lance Cpl. Dylan R. Merola, 20, of Rancho Cucamonga, Cpl. Hunter Lopez, 22, of Indio, and Cpl. Kareem M. Nikoui, 20, of Norco. Middle Row from left: Staff Sgt. Darin T. Hoover, 31, of Salt Lake City, Utah, Cpl. Daegan W. Page, 23, of Omaha, Nebraska, Sgt. Johanny Rosario Pichardo, 25, of Lawrence, Massachusetts Cpl. Humberto A. Sanchez, 22, of Logansport, Indiana, and Lance Cpl. David L. Espinoza, 20, of Rio Bravo, Texas. Bottom Row from left: Lance Cpl. Jared M. Schmitz, 20, of St. Charles, Missouri, Lance Cpl. Rylee J. McCollum, 20, of Jackson, Wyoming, Navy Corpsman, Maxton W. Soviak, 22, of Berlin Heights, Ohio, Army Staff Sgt. Ryan C. Knauss, 23, of Corryton, Tennessee and Sgt. Nicole L. Gee, 23, of Roseville, California.
Strength in community
Rex said funding for the approximately $200,000 memorial was raised mostly through donations and community events, and people and the contractors donated their time and materials to help get it done.
The monument is designed and manufactured by the Woody Williams Foundation, which encourages the establishment of memorial monuments in communities throughout the United States, as well as providing outreach and scholarships to eligible Gold Star family members.
The first monument was a tribute to Medal of Honor recipient Hershel “Woody” Williams in his home state of West Virginia. So far, 155 monuments have been erected, with 47 more in progress.
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In California, the Rancho Cucamonga monument will be the ninth built, and another is planned in Sacramento. The group has already seen two built in Riverside County, at the Riverside National Cemetery and at the George A. Ingalls Veterans Memorial Plaza in Norco.
Katie Howard, director of operations for the Williams Foundation and a Marine veteran, said she was impressed by Rex’s effort through the multi-year process to get the monument. While the group is there to help, it is really a local organizer who gets the project through to completion.
“I know grief really well, being a Marine Corps veteran and dealing with many obstacles outside the military life,” Howard said. “To have a place where you can gather and heal and relate with each other, that in itself helps us get through the days and makes us not feel so alone.
“When I see the strength from these Gold Star families and the tears in their eyes at every step, with approving images, finding a site, and with getting a donation, it gives me goosebumps,” she added. “The purpose of bringing people together and all the effort they do is a genuine intention to not only help others be seen, but to help others know they are not alone.”
Rex said she recommended Central Park because of its Freedom Courtyard, established in 2013 and already used for patriotic holiday celebrations, including Memorial Day. The city gave the space for the Gold Star monument.
“I felt if I could put it there, it would be perfect and tie it together,” Rex said.
She was drawn to the design with a cutout silhouette of a service member, she said, after attending the 2023 unveiling of the monument at Riverside National Cemetery. The effort to install that monument was led by Dee Dee Rodler, a Temecula woman whose husband, Marine Capt. Gregg Rodler, was killed in a training accident in 1987.
“I saw that one and asked if I could place one here in our hometown,” Rex said, recalling her conversation with Rancho Cucamonga Councilmember Ryan Hutchinson.
“I could see fire in her eyes,” Hutchinson said of Rex’s clear determination. “And I knew I wanted the city to partner with that effort.”
The community has many Gold Star families, current and former members of the military, and is very connected to the military, Hutchinson said. That was clearly displayed during the candlelight vigil for Merola and the other service members, he said.
“That was an incredibly moving, tragic moment,” he said. “But, it was also something that brought a couple of strong people together in a way that memorialized what happened to those who lost their lives, but also all of the sacrifices the community has made throughout the years.”
He said the city was thrilled to dedicate the land at Central Park, where the memorial has a majestic view of Mount Baldy in the background.
“It will be a place where people have access, and folks can come out and enjoy and understand and see for themselves, in granite, that our community really cares about the heroes out there fighting for us every day,” Hutchinson said.
One side of the granite monument is dedicated to Gold Star families, while the other side features four panels representing “homeland, family, patriot and sacrifice.” In the heart is the silhouette.
That cutout tugged at her heartstrings, Rex said of how the light shines through at sunset, casting the servicemember’s shadow on the ground.
“It was personal to me, it was like God shining through, and that they sacrificed their lives for every one of us, past, present, and future,” she said. “It is a constant symbol of their sacrifice for our country. It’s like they’re protecting us all the time.”
And the mission to install these monuments across the country and in U.S. territories, Baltierra said, also ensures that “no Gold Star family grieves unseen.”
“These monuments create awareness,” she said, “foster patriotism and unite communities in gratitude, remembrance and healing.”
Among the Gold Star parents attending on Monday will be Vivien Yasuda, of Buena Park, whose son, Luc Yasuda, 21, was serving with the US Navy at the Naval Information Operations Command at Fort Gordon, Georgia, when he died in an off-base accident. Born in Long Beach, Yasuda joined the Navy out of high school and turned 18 in boot camp.
Since her son’s death, Yasuda has been active with Blue Star Mothers Chapter 30 along with Baltierra. The group reaches out to other moms with children currently serving in the military.
Though Yasuda said she never met the “13 brave Americans” killed in the airport bombing, she understands how important Rex’s effort is to get the monument placed. The monuments keep the American public aware of the sacrifices of so many service members.
She also sees the monuments as an important tool for educating younger generations.
“Memorial Day is not about picnics and barbecues; it’s a holiday to share the stories of service,” Yasuda said. “It’s important for me that we should do this in every state and among the community.”
The monument’s unveiling
Rex has kept close tabs on the monument’s progress since the groundbreaking in January, watching over each step.
She was on-site when the monument was delivered, and she stayed with the construction crew, watching them assemble it late into the night.
“It was personal to me,” she said. “I wanted to be there for every part of it.”
And, now as the hours before the full reveal tick down, Rex said she is ready to see the finished tribute. She’s often thought about the moment it will be unveiled to all, she said, and she thinks about the strength her son still gives her.
“I think about how Dylan kept me going to honor other families,” she said. “It’s going to be very emotional. It will be that I’m proud we were able to do that for others, but at the same time, that pain of knowing that all these other families lost their loved ones just as we did.”
“And, I’m going to be nervous about speaking,” she added. “I gain that strength during that time to read a speech and talk about my son, and after it, I feel good that I can do it. And at the end, I go home, and it sits deep in my heart, and I break down.”
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