Homeless Veteran Camp Lejeune Marine Final Honors

Group organizes funeral with military honors for homeless Marine who died in January 
Jacksonville Daily News
By James LaPorta
Posted Nov. 3, 2015

Lance Cpl. Andrew Mauney, a former infantry assaultman with Camp Lejeune’s 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, died in January at 53. After his death and six months in the morgue with all resources exhausted in search of Mauney’s next of kin, he was eventually deemed an “unclaimed individual.” However, for strangers who had never met Mauney the term “unclaimed” was unacceptable.

Emmett Salas, a retired Marine sergeant major, is helping the Missing in America project claim and bury Lance Cpl. Andrew Mauney, a former infantry assaultman with Camp Lejeune's 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, who died in January at 53. Photo by James LaPorta / The Daily News

It all comes down to a simple motto: No man left behind. A group of veterans are coming together to give final honors to a man they’ve never met, but one with whom they share a distinct bond.

“There is no former Marine,” Emmett Salas, a retired Marine sergeant major, said. “It’s just Marine … and that’s why we are doing this … We’re going to claim this Marine.”

“This Marine” is Lance Cpl. Andrew Mauney, a former infantry assaultman with Camp Lejeune’s 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, who died in January at 53.

Born June 1962, Mauney entered the Marines by way of Richmond, Virginia, and served three years and two months with two overseas deployments. Mauney received an honorable discharge in 1983, according to a copy of his DD-214, which lists Mauney’s record of service on active duty.
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