Utah's forgotten veterans receive military funeral

| Associated Press ^ | August 15, 2011

[robowombat]

BLUFFDALE, Utah – It's been four years since Randall Hester last heard from his older brother, Ron, a Navy veteran his family called a lone wolf. He had no idea Ron had died in January 2009 until relatives saw the man's name in a newspaper along with 15 other veterans whose bodies were unclaimed.

On Monday, Hester prepared for a final goodbye, gripping an urn containing his brother's ashes and heading off to the Manti-La Sal National Forest. "It will be our last elk hunt," the 50-year-old Hester said with a great laugh, a bit like old times. He planned to scatter his brother's ashes beneath an aspen tree. Earlier Monday, Hester and his family were among those participating in a ceremony for more than a dozen Utah veterans whose remains had gone unclaimed after their deaths. The service at Utah Veterans Cemetery & Memorial Park in Bluffdale was the first in the state organized by the Missing in America Project as part of a national initiative to locate unburied or unclaimed cremated remains of veterans and provide military burials. For years, the remains of 16 had rested in a Salt Lake City funeral home closet. In April, Missing in America Project officials obtained whatever identification documents the funeral home had and worked with the VA and other agencies to confirm their military service, whether through Social Security numbers, dates of birth or genealogy searches. Some of the veterans were homeless or poor, while others simply led lonely lives with little contact with their families. In Ron Hester's case, his family recently saw his name in a newspaper article about the planned memorial service. It was the first they had heard of his death.

[TEXOKIE]

bttt

[Doogle]

...sad in so many ways.

[Ciexyz]

May they RIP. Amen.