Dwight Lewis
dlewis@tennessean.com
615-726-5928
They won't be sending Frank Murray to the University of Tennessee's Anthropology Research Facility, better known as the Body Farm, after all.
Instead, Murray, 65, a Vietnam War veteran found dead June 30 in the trailer where he lived in Murfreesboro, will be given a military burial Tuesday in the Middle Tennessee Veterans Cemetery on McCrory Lane.
"Our goal is to make sure no veteran ends up at the Body Farm,'' William J. Burleigh, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and executive director of Operation Stand Down Nashville, told me Tuesday.
That goal is one that Operation Stand Down Nashville, which helps the community re-establish ties with its veterans, can't accomplish by itself. And it's a goal that's being achieved not only with Murray's burial at 9 a.m. Aug. 5, but that of Dennis Gill, a homeless veteran, at 10 a.m. and Jerry Moran, a veteran who was formerly homeless, at 11 a.m.
"This is an extreme message,'' John Furgess, who served as assistant state commissioner for veterans affairs for 20 years before retiring in 2002, said by phone Tuesday. "When a veteran leaves the military he carries a lifelong record of service to his country. … Many times experts talk about the emotional effects on a veteran. You and I know it as post-traumatic stress disorder. …''
Furgess went on to tell me about the death and life of Jerry Moran, 61, who like Murray was a Vietnam veteran.
Eastland Funeral Home, which is owned by the Dignity Memorial Network, is providing free burial preparation for all three men, Burleigh and Furgess said. And officials with the Middle Tennessee Veterans Cemetery are making burial arrangements.
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Lacey Moran-Frith
ReplyDeleteNo where does any article talk about my father (Jerry Moran) being abusive to his wife and leaving hos child (myself) at the age of 2. Nor does the article talk about all the child support he failed to pay and the Burdens place on his family after his abandonment. What a way to memorialize someone that did not deserve it!
I am sorry your life was so hard. Children of Vietnam veterans had a very hard time but so did other children of other veterans. The price of war is not just paid by those who fight it. It is paid by their families as well.
ReplyDeleteI had a hard life too with an abusive Korean Vet as my father. He was a violent alcoholic until I was 13. He stopped drinking when then and tried to mend the scars he left on all of us. He passed away at the age of 58. He did a lot of harm but after he stopped drinking, he did a lot of good and helped many veterans give up drinking. He had a military funeral because he served not because of what he did in his life afterwards, good or bad.
This "honor" is because your Dad served in VIetnam. Whatever he did afterwards, more likely than not, could have been tied to what happened to him during his service. Too many cannot just "get over it" and they do things that hurt someone else. Now PTSD is all over the news but back then, no one talked about any of it.
They suffered in silence and families had no clue what was behind any of it. Everyone was suffering but no one was able to do much. It took men coming home from Vietnam to make sure PTSD was treated. They are the reason there are so many things available for newer veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan.
You can hang onto your anger and no one would say that it is not right for you to feel the way you do. I am suggesting that you find out what was behind the way your Dad was. Not for his sake but for your own.
I forgave my Dad but my two brothers and my Mom didn't. Both my brothers died with hatred within them. One was 42 and the other was 56 when they died. My Mom spent the rest of her life thinking about what could have been instead of focusing on what was. I moved on.
Maybe it was because of my Dad that I was able to see them differently and was able to do what I had to when it came to my own marriage to a Vietnam vet with PTSD.