Veterans' Groups honor homeless veteran with military funeral

Homeless veteran given full military funeral
Ocala Star Banner
Andy Fillmore
October 24, 2013

Homeless veteran John Miles Anderson has a family now.

Doug Engle/Star-Banner

Members of the Patriot Guard carry the casket out of the hearse after it arrived at the Forest Lawn Funeral Home and Memorial Garden Thursday. A funeral was held Thursday for homeless Vietnam vet John Miles Anderson.

“We're all his family,” Kaye Barker said about the roughly 75 members of honorary military groups and the Marion County Sheriff's Office as a funeral service for Anderson, described as homeless, concluded Thursday.

Anderson, 67, died Sept. 20. The service was held in the Garden of Veterans at Forest Lawn Cemetery, south of Ocala. The burial will be today at the National Cemetery in Bushnell.

Barker said Anderson's last few years were “private,” and called him a near “loner.” He had been living in substandard housing that was often burglarized in an area of the Ocala National Forest characterized as “drug infested” by R.C. Barker, Kaye's husband.
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