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CAMP WILLIAMS -- This weekend and through Monday, Americans will pause to honor their deceased loved ones, especially those who have served and sacrificed while in the military. Numerous events are planned around Utah. And in the Nation’s Capital on Monday, they’ll pause at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery to lay a wreath.
But while many veterans are memorialized with services and ceremony, surrounded by family and loved ones, many are dying alone and their remains are never claimed. Veterans groups say that includes a fair number here in Utah.
Even some with family are interred alone. It happened in mid-January at the Veteran’s Cemetery at Camp Williams. A hearse, bearing the body of a man who served in the Air Force during the Korean War, pulled up to the curb. Two workers from the funeral home got out, removed a simple, felt-covered casket draped with an American flag, and prepared the casket for burial. Besides a cemetery worker, no one else was there.
The people who work at the cemetery say that happens from time to time, and in this case, at least the man had someone willing to buy a casket. Many other times, no one claims the remains.
“It’s very sad,” Cemetery Manager Arnold Warner said.
“That’s a human being,” said Roger Graves, Utah Coordinator for a project called “Missing in America.” The group’s aim is to identify and give honors to veterans who die alone. “That’s a brother, sister, mother, father, uncle, aunt that had loved ones at some time.”
What happened between their military service and their deaths often remains a mystery, although Graves and his group try to seek out their families and find some answers.
“These people are broken, many of them, and have disassociated themselves from family,” he said. “And they have no one. So we become their family.”
They do that in Utah by giving them a service with full military honors once a year. Graves said they’ve honored 59 veterans in Utah so far. Twenty-one are already on the list for the next ceremony scheduled for August.
Graves said Nationwide, thousands of veterans die alone.
“There’s estimated 200,000 unclaimed veterans sitting on shelves today,” Graves said.
Often, he said, they’re turned over to the state for cremation, then left at funeral homes or taken to veteran’s cemeteries.
At the Camp Williams cemetery, they give them a place. Often it’s in a niche in a memorial wall in which their cremated remains are placed along with an American flag and any personal belongings that may be with them.
“We save their personal belongings and a flag in case a family member does show up and ask where they are placed,” said Warner.
Once in a while, he said, someone will show up, but it’s a rare event.
The cemetery also gives them a marker bearing their name, birth and death dates, and an encryption that reads, “Appreciated, not forgotten.”
Warner said, “They’ve done a service for us. Now it’s our turn to do a service for them.”
At the Camp Williams cemetery, Warner said they hold around 500 burials a year. The vast majority, of course, are veterans who are flanked by family and loved ones. He said working there is an honor.
“It’s a good job, I feel like I’m paying my service,” he said.
Graves feels the same way.
“If you look at the number of people who actually stand up, raise their right hand and take that oath… I think they’re a very small percentage of our citizenship, so they are extra special people,” he said. “And then if you figure out how many of those people are unclaimed… that’s probably a half-percent of the ones who served.”
And those, he said, have earned recognition.
