Army 1st Lt. Matthew Ferrara's death in eastern Afghanistan was especially harsh for South High School in Torrance: He was the school's third graduate killed in the line of duty in less than a year.
Ferrara, 24, was a high school track star. Army Pfc. Joseph Anzack Jr. and Army Spc. Micah Gifford were driven competitors on the football field.
Now, the serene campus of red-brick classrooms and pine trees just off Pacific Coast Highway is navigating through an emotional transformation marked by tearful vigils and poignant special announcements, such as one delivered in September -- two months before Ferrara's death -- by Principal Scott McDowell at the first football game of the season.
He spoke about Anzack, 20, and Gifford, 27.
"It is a rare thing for a school to retire a jersey," he told the estimated 5,000 people in attendance. "Tonight we do it not for the talent Micah and Joe displayed on the field, nor for the impact they had on others as students. Tonight we retire their jerseys for the examples they set as men, and for the price they paid in service to the school, community and country."
The green jerseys -- No. 52 for Anzack and No. 65 for Gifford -- were framed and hung high on a wall in the school gymnasium. Ferrara's cross-country track shirt will take its place on the wall later this year.
In an interview in his office, McDowell said, "Every school has alumni in the military. It's a fluke that we've lost three.
"The impact? It's made foreign affairs, and the price of war, real for our students. For us, it's real bullets, real friends, real losses of people who had real families. Our students aren't as flippant about the war in the Middle East as they might have been. They understand it's a complex issue."
Judging from the chatter at a local Starbucks, where students gather after school to vent, flirt and smoke, some are grappling with their first education in mortality.
Michael Taylor, 16, a South High junior with a blond mohawk who wears baggy black clothes and a class ring, said, "It's a lot to handle for one school. As a teenager, I think it sucks. But it's our life. It's real to us."
"They were all heroes, dude," said Patrick Scheliga, 17, a junior with spiked black hair and white-framed sunglasses. "I'm going to join the Army -- all the more reason to do it."
Anzack, Ferrara and Gifford did not know each other. Gifford was in the class of 1997. Ferrara graduated in 2001 and Anzack four years later.
