Veterans’ unclaimed remains buried in emotional ceremony

Veterans’ unclaimed remains buried in emotional ceremony

Photo by Melissa Treolo.


A student at Fort Leavenworth’s Command and General Staff College silently pays tribute over the remains formerly unclaimed World War I veterans during Tuesday’s funeral services at Fort Leavenworth National Cemetery. In all, the cremains of14 veterans, including one dating to the Civil War, were laid to rest after decades languishing on the storage shelves of a Missouri-based funeral home.

By Melissa Treolo
August 3, 2011

Fort Leavenworth — Sun Rodgers of Leavenworth and Betty Wright of Shawnee cried and clung together during last week’s funeral service at Fort Leavenworth National Cemetery.

The two Gold Star Mothers didn’t know the 14 veterans and three veterans’ wives who were buried July 26 in a military funeral organized by the Missing in America Project, but they said the experience was still an emotional one. It brought fresh to mind the sons they had lost — Rodgers’ son, Sgt. Ricky Rodgers, to an illness in 2005 while stationed at Fort Polk, La.; and Wright’s son, Pvt. Shawn Wright, to suicide in 1991 while home on leave.

Shortly after their deaths, Ricky Rodgers and Shawn Wright received appropriate burials with military honors. The honors bestowed on the 14 veterans buried last week, however, were long overdue.

Pvt. George McCarthy served in the Civil War and died in 1946 at the age of 102. He was cremated and his ashes sat unclaimed in the storage of Missouri-based funeral home D.W. Newcomer’s Sons for more than 60 years. Cremains of the 13 other veterans, all of whom served in World War I, suffered a similar fate, having no one to claim them for decades.

That is, until the Missing in America Project stepped in. The national nonprofit organization works closely with funeral homes to validate and give proper burial services to veterans left unclaimed by family members. Linda Smith, head of operations for the organization, says any given funeral home in the United States could have anywhere from 10 to 1,000 sets of veterans’ cremains in its storage. Usually state laws dictate that funeral homes must hold onto those remains until such time as they are claimed, Smith said. It is the Missing In America Project’s goal to claim and validate as many unclaimed veterans as possible, making sure each and every one is buried, with appropriate military honors, in a national cemetery.
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Veterans unclaimed remains buried in emotional ceremony