Vietnam Veteran Air Force Sergeant Robert Earn Davenport Laid To Rest With Love

Strangers Hold Memorial, Pay For Veteran’s Burial
CBS News
Budd Gilett
November 19, 2014

DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - Complete strangers gathered to say good-bye Wednesday at a touching memorial in Dallas for a veteran who left no known relatives.

Those in attendance were moved to pay for a burial service including full military honors. They were mostly Patriot Guards and nurses from Methodist Richardson Medical Center who gathered at the DFW National Cemetery to bury a man who never uttered a word to any of them. A man with no known family; adopted in death.

“We’re a family,” said Mark Littell, Ride Captain of the Patriot Guard, referring to the military and the caregivers. “The nurses in the hospital talked about being part of Mr. Davenport’s family because his family wasn’t there. And we feel the same way.”

The Mr. Davenport he spoke of was Air Force Sergeant Robert Earn Davenport. A 68-year-old Vietnam veteran sent unconscious to the hospital from a nursing home… who spent his last hours fighting cancer, unaware of the new care surrounding him.
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