PHOENIX (Jacqueline Shoyeb, Arizona Republic) May 28, 2005 - The two hard raps on the front door is the clearest memory Mary Moraga has of Sept. 15, 1951.

The rest of the day was a foggy hurt for then 19-year-old Moraga and her family. The visitors knocking at the front door were U.S. Army personnel there to say that 21-year-old Benny Duarte, Moraga's brother, died in action. He had been in Korea less than a year.

"My mother didn't respond or anything," said Moraga, now 73. "We got a letter on the eighth from him that he'd written before he died on the 12th so mom thought he was alive."

That day Teresa Duarte became a Gold Star Mother, a title given to moms who have lost a child in war. To honor Benny, she joined other Gold Star Mothers at the local American Legion. Before she died, and after 31 years of service in the Legion, Teresa made Moraga promise to carry on the title and tradition of the Gold Star Mother.

Moraga has and now she and 28 other women are keeping their mothers' organization moving as the Gold Star Mothers and Sisters of American Legion Post 41, Phoenix's first Hispanic American Legion post.

The group, at least 50 years old, remembers Latino veterans and fallen soldiers through a Mass, breakfast and cemetery ceremony each Memorial Day. It's a tradition they hope their own children and grandchildren will carry on.

And Monday, the women will gather again, first beginning the day praying for the living and end remembering the fallen with a Mass at 8 a.m. at St. Anthony's Catholic Church, 909 First Ave., and then with a ceremony at 11 a.m. at St. Francis Catholic Cemetery, 4800 E. Oak St. The services are open to the public.

"It's our way of honoring them and at the same time remembering them," said Mary Angulo Cordova of American Legion Ladies Auxiliary Unit 41. "It's also a time to thank the Lord for who we do have. It's in our corazón, especially after 9/11."

The concept of giving gold stars to families of dead soldiers started in the early part of the 20th century with World War I. In 1928, a group of mothers organized themselves as the American Gold Star Mothers, a national organization set up to help veterans and unify mothers in their grief.

Membership of the club grew with WWII, the Korean and Vietnam wars, but eventually the mothers grew too old and the organization shrunk, said Judith Young, a Gold Star Mother service officer at its headquarters in Washington, D.C.

"A lot of the mothers seem to join their local groups because we don't have chapters anymore because after WWII and Korea, down to Vietnam and starting with the Iraq moms, there aren't a whole lot of moms," she said. Officially, the organization has about 1,000 members, Young said.

The women at Post 41 aren't affiliated with the national organization because there is no local chapter and only a couple of mothers left. Either way, the group's Memorial Day tradition will carry on through women like Moraga.

"To me, it (Memorial Day) has always been special," she said, holding back tears. "So many young men died. My brother was one."

Of the 36,574 U.S. personnel killed in the Korean War, 881 Hispanics lost their lives like Benny Duarte, according to a Department of Defense Web site.

But Moraga, whose husband is a WWII veteran, is worried that soon no one will remember Benny and the thousands more who have died. Her children are too busy, and her grandchildren don't understand why she attends Mass and visits the cemetery each year.

"I keep telling them (children) every year," she said. "But nobody feels the way we do."

Like Moraga, Alice Santana carries her mother's unwanted title. On a recent afternoon at the post, Santana brushed her 76-year-old fingers across an old portrait of "the baby."

In the old photo, the baby is 21, with broad shoulders, a dimple in his chin and rosy cheeks. He's dressed in a dark green Army uniform that matches his eyes.

Her brother, Frank Murrietta, was killed in Vietnam when the helicopter he was flying was shot down. Eight other soldiers were with him.

"I was told, 'There's three of us left, but the baby's gone,'" she said crying as she remembered the day they got the news decades ago.

Frankie, as they called him, loved planes and flying. As a boy, his room was lined with model airplanes that hung from the ceiling. When he finally earned his pilot's license, the newspaper delivery boy would fly stacks of newspapers to Yuma, just to be in the cockpit again.

On Nov. 15, 1967, the Army announced he was missing.

"My mother was devastated because he was the baby of her life," Santana said. "She wouldn't eat or drink because she knew my brother was missing. She said, 'How could I eat or drink knowing my son was (missing). Who knows whether he has water or food.'"

Two weeks later, his 22-year-old body was returned. Santana later joined the mothers at Post 41.

After her mother's death, Santana has kept the title alive as a Gold Star sister.

And like Moraga, she'll continue the tradition for as long as she can. But she's not as worried that it will fade away.

"A lot of young people are coming (to Memorial Day events)," she said. "They'll keep the tradition going."