Bay Area cadet who died in 2019 honored during Memorial Day ceremony in SF

The annual Memorial Day ceremony at the Presidio in San Francisco highlighted a Bay Area native who died just weeks before graduating from West Point.

Each year, a Gold Star family is featured during the ceremony, highlighting the loss of their loved one while in service in the military. This year, the East Bay family of Peter Zhu was selected.

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Zhu was a West Point cadet who died in an accident at the Military Academy in 2019 and was posthumously commissioned as a second lieutenant in the army.

His mother Monica fought back tears as she honored her son.

"You were the brightest and the most promising," she said. "You were my pride. You were my support."

In 2019, Monica and her husband Yongmin got a court order to preserve their son's sperm before he was taken off life support. Among the Zhu family members at Monday's ceremony was his young son.

"Thank you for your service, including Peter's son Michael, who's three years old, so beautiful," Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi said.