Homeless Vietnam Vet, Seabee, laid to rest with honors

Homeless Vietnam vet buried with full military honors, paid by funeral home program
By Elinor Brecher, The Miami Herald
9:43 p.m. EDT, July 21, 2011

When William Gaunt returned from Vietnam in the late '60s, he was scarred inside and out. You could see the shrapnel wounds. You could only guess at the emotional damage through his struggles with alcohol and drugs.

A heavy smoker, he died at Fort Lauderdale's Imperial Point Medical Center on July 3, beset by diabetes, emphysema, hepatitis and cirrhosis of the liver.

Gaunt might have been consigned to a pauper's grave. Instead, he was laid to rest with military honors Thursday at the South Florida National Cemetery in Lake Worth through a funeral-home chain's homeless veterans burial program.

Taps was played and three sailors saluted Gaunt's flag-draped casket.

"He deserved it,'' said Ben Harris, one of nine friends who came to mourn Billy Gaunt.

Gaunt was born May 30, 1949, in Newark, N.J., and served with the U.S. Navy's Seabees from 1967 to 1969.

"Billy would have felt very proud and honored to be sent off this way,'' said Ed Stephens, another Navy veteran of the Vietnam War.

"He was a proud Seabee who loved his country,'' said Patrick Birk, his roommate at a Pompano Beach "sober house,'' who accepted Gaunt's folded coffin flag from two sailors in summer whites.
read more here
Homeless Vietnam vet buried with full military honors