Missing in America making sure veterans have military funerals

Non-profit identifies, buries veterans' remains

By Judy Keen, USA TODAY
HIGGINSVILLE, Mo. — Gervis and Mary Adney were finally laid to rest in the Missouri Veterans Cemetery on a cloudless morning. A bagpiper played Amazing Grace, a bugler played taps and a three-shot volley echoed across the hills.

Since Mary Adney's death in 1992 and her husband's in 1989, their cremated remains had been in a funeral home's storage facility, unclaimed. He had served in the Army in World War I. The Missing in America Project, a national non-profit organization that locates, identifies and inters veterans' cremains, researched the dates of her birth and death and helped ensure that both received belated military burials.

In all, 16 veterans and two spouses, including Mary and Gervis, were honored in a single ceremony and interred here. Their cremains had all been in storage, sometimes for decades. A Missouri law proposed by the Missing in America Project and passed last year made it possible for them to be laid to rest. The law eliminated liability for funeral homes that turn over veterans' ashes that have been abandoned for at least a year to veterans' service groups.

"They are home now," said Higginsville cemetery director Jess Rasmussen at the brief service, which was not attended by relatives of any of the 18 deceased. "They're not forgotten anymore on a dusty shelf."
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Non profit identifies buries veterans remains

Missing in America honors abandoned veterans' remains

Historic service honors abandoned veterans' remains
By JOHN FRIEDLEIN

jfriedlein@thenewsenterprise.com

After Lisa Hutchings’ father died more than 20 years ago, she assumed the Korean War veteran’s cremated remains were interred for good.

Then about two months ago she received a phone call: Somebody had found the remains.

“I didn’t know they were lost,” she said.

The veteran — along with more than 30 others and some of their wives — received a military burial and service Monday at a Radcliff cemetery. Their ashes had sat neglected for years.

The Missing in America Project recovered the remains from the University of Louisville, which stored them after Eastern Cemetery was charged with violations and targeted by vandals. The remains belong to veterans who served in wars from World War I to the Korean War.
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Historic service honors abandoned veterans remains

Missing in America Project seeks out the forgotten vets

Missing in America Project seeks out the forgotten vets
Illinois Valley News - Cave Junction,OR,USA
Missing in America Project seeks out the forgotten vets
From our weekly issue dated April 8, 2009

By Michelle Binker
IVN Staff Writer




MIAP began in Oregon three years ago, and has spread to 44 states. Its mission is to locate, identify and inter the unclaimed cremated remains of U.S. veterans through the joint efforts of private, state and federal organizations. So far almost 600 veterans have been identified, and close to 400 interred.
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Missing In America Group finds, buries remains of forgotten veterans

The remains of four war veterans are saluted by a military guard during a ceremony with full military honors at the Vermont Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Randolph , Vt., Friday, Nov. 7, 2008. The remains were located by the Missing in America Project , a national nonprofit organization dedicated to identifying and honoring the unclaimed remains of American veterans. (AP Photo/Toby Talbot)

Group finds, buries remains of forgotten veterans
The Associated Press
By WILSON RING

RANDOLPH, Vt. (AP) — In World War II, Samuel Mazur was a tail gunner on a B-17 bomber that flew over Europe.

Three decades later, he died of cancer — with no family at his side — at a Veterans Administration hospital in Vermont. His cremated remains were sent to a funeral home, where they were placed on a shelf and forgotten.

"He had an interesting life," said Euclid Farnham, who knew him. "He really did not have anyone."

Until last week.

On Friday, Mazur got full military honors and was laid to rest along with three other forgotten veterans as part of the Missing in America Project, a volunteer organization that seeks to identify and honor the unclaimed remains of American veterans.

There was no family, but there were dozens of leather-clad, motorcycle-riding veterans at the Vermont Veterans' Memorial Cemetery, and a military honor guard.

"The recognition of their service transcends their death, and in places like this cemetery, we will continue to devote ourselves to their cause," retired U.S. Army Col. Joseph Krawczyk said during the ceremony.

In two years, the group's volunteers have visited 592 funeral homes, found 6,327 sets of unclaimed remains, identified 491 of them as belonging to veterans and interred 325, said Bruce Turner, the Vermont coordinator.

The Department of Veterans Affairs supports the effort.

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One of the Chaplains in my group out of Broward County Florida is a memeber of Missing in America as well. When I first heard about this, I was shocked that the remains of so many veterans have just been left on the shelf, unclaimed. We are deeply grateful this group is there working to insure that all veterans are provided with a proper military burial.

Missing in America Project lays another vet to rest

Once-forgotten veterans buried in Oregon

The Associated Press
Posted : Saturday Jun 21, 2008 9:04:28 EDT

EAGLE POINT, Ore. — Harry Fish was born in Ohio and served in the Army during World War I.

He married Mima Fish and died in Grants Pass on April 18, 1974 — 10 days after Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s home run record.

Little else is known about Fish, except that his ashes sat unclaimed for the past 34 years in a locker at a Grants Pass funeral home.

On Thursday, the remains of Fish and seven other forgotten servicemen were buried with full military honors at the Eagle Point National Cemetery.

The remains were discovered as part of the Missing in America Project, a 2-year-old group that finds, verifies and arranges burials with full military honors for veterans whose remains lie unclaimed in funeral homes.
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http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/06/ap_vetburial_062108/

Missing in America effort lays Vietnam Vet to final rest

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A final ceremony, but not the last
Military burial for Natick veteran serves as start for Missing in America effort

By Michele Morgan Bolton
Globe Correspondent / June 19, 2008
The crack of a 21-gun salute broke the silence in the Massachusetts National Cemetery in Bourne.

Four years after his death, Master Sergeant Adam A. Kippes finally came to rest in the plot of land set aside for veterans like him. Kippes was the first veteran in Massachusetts to be given military burial honors through the efforts of the Missing in America Project.

The program, founded in Oregon last year, searches for the forgotten cremated remains of veterans that have languished on shelves or in the dusty basements of funeral homes, state hospitals, and prisons - in some cases for more than 100 years.

Or, as in the case of Kippes, remains that have been kept by loving relatives who couldn't afford to provide a proper funeral service for them.

"This is something Adam would have wanted," said his sister-in-law, Carol Shedd of Natick, as she cradled the folded American flag presented to her as part of the June 6 ceremony for Kippes. "He was military all the way."

As a chill settled in the air, Shedd, 78, said she was relieved and grateful that Kippes would be given his place of honor, earned during a 28-year Army career during World War II, Korea, and Vietnam.

Kippes was 89 years old and a resident of the Alzheimer's unit of a Natick nursing home when he died in 2004. But before that, Shedd said, he lived and breathed the Army, even after he retired.

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http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/06/19/a_final_ceremony_but_not_the_last/

A Chaplain friend of mine is involved with this group. Not that the media would ever report on them. Thank you Boston Globe!