Homeless Vets Buried With Honors

[unhappycamper]

Homeless Vets Buried With Honors
January 30, 2009
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Bill Branson was working as a funeral director in south St. Louis when a family asked him to help them find the remains of their loved one.

It was about 35 years ago. All they could tell him was the man's name, that he might have lived in the area and that he was a highly decorated World War II veteran.

He can't remember the veteran's name, but Branson, a retired U.S. major general himself, will never forget the feeling he had when he discovered the fellow veteran's final resting place was a potter's field.

"The family wanted to move him to Jefferson Barracks, but nobody knew for sure which grave was his," Branson recalled. "So they decided to leave him where he was and did nothing about it. It stuck with me."

About nine years ago, Branson shared the memory over lunch with a friend and fellow veteran, Joe Frank, now chairman of the Missouri Veterans Commission. The moment became the inspiration behind a nationwide movement to ensure that homeless veterans are buried with full military honors. Branson and a crowd of about 75 watched Thursday as the Homeless Veterans Burial Program laid its 74th and 75th veterans to rest at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery -- bringing the number of homeless veterans buried with honors to 540 nationwide.


Rest of article at: http://www.military.com/news/article/homeless-vets-buried-with-honors.html?col=1186032310810