Nov 11, 2008 10:59 pm US/Eastern
Remains Of Hundreds Of War Vets Sitting On Shelves
Missing In America Project Seeks To Give Vets Proper Burials
WORCESTER (WBZ) ―
Tonight, as we pause to honor the men and women who fought for our freedom, the I-Team sheds light on a dark secret -- and the dark places where the remains of hundreds of our veterans have been left behind.
Our war heroes deserve respect and to be buried in a dignified place, but those are rights not every veteran receives.
"They fought for the country, they deserve to be put to rest with honors," said Don MacNeill, state coordinator for the
Missing In America Project.
In the basements of funeral homes and old hospitals across the country there is no honor, no peaceful, final resting place for our heroes -- the veterans of our wars. The I-Team discovered hundreds of our veterans have been left behind -- gathering dust and sitting on shelves for decades.
"Like many people, I couldn't understand how these human beings who lived a life - how is it that they can end up on a shelf and nobody takes care of them?" wondered Sharon Bouchard, state coordinator for the Missing In America project.
Bouchard is the mother of two Marines, Don MacNeill a veteran of the Gulf War. They're on personal missions that begin in the cellar of a Worcester funeral home, where unclaimed cremated remains, or "cremains," are stacked on shelves. Some are in plastic bags, unidentified, while others are almost 100 years old.
Bouchard and MacNeill are volunteers for the Missing In America Project, bringing our veterans out of the dark. They cross-check names on urns with old journals and a Department of Defense database to make sure every person who has served our country gets the burial our veterans deserve.
"I wouldn't want to end up like this," MacNeill said. "You go through life, earn your way through, you shouldn't end up on a shelf because there wasn't money to bury you or no one claimed you."
There are about 160 cremains tucked away in different corners of the old basement at the Graham, Putnam and Mahoney funeral home in Worcester. They're surrounded by cobwebs and dirt near a furnace and piles of junk.
"There may be a chance you have some older veteran's here?" we asked funeral director Peter Stefani.
"World War II, maybe prior to that," Stefani replied. "We have some going back to 1912."
From the East Coast to the West, where 3,500 tin cans of unidentified ashes were discovered in an Oregon state hospital and those of a California veteran with no next of kin were found sitting on a shelf at the county coroner's office for months.
One by one, they are being they're being brought home with full military honors.
"If I could tell him how good this has been and how wonderful, he wouldn't believe it," one deceased vet's friend told us.
So far the Missing In America Project has interred the remains of 321 veterans nationwide. The first Massachusetts veteran to receive full military burial honors through the project was laid to rest in the national cemetery in Bourne last June.
"He was a veteran of World War II, Korea and Vietnam," said Larry Herson of the Jewish War Veterans Council.
Master Sgt. Adam Kippes' remains were brought to the national cemetery after sitting in the closet of an elderly relative's home for years.
"Knowing that you brought him here to his final resting place, you've got to feel great. That's an atta boy," Henson said.
"When people ask us 'How does this happen?' it was the system," Sharon Bouchard said.
But the system is changing, and a recent change in state law brings the volunteers to the Massachusetts Funeral Directors Association. They make a plea to funeral directors to turn over their private, unclaimed remains and any given to them by the state.
"The new law allows us to bury the cremains of people who have been unclaimed for 12 months rather than have them sit on a shelf or in a closet," funeral director Peter Stefani said.
"You can't blame the funeral homes," Herson said, "because if they took these remains and buried them without permission and a family came along five or 10 years later, they would be responsible for the expense of taking the remains out and moving them."
A proper military sendoff is the right of every veteran, but the head of the Missing In America project, Vietnam vet Fred Salanti, believes it's a right at least 15,000 veterans have never received.
"This is a secret that's gone on for too long," Salanti said.
An untold secret -- and it's the Missing In America Project's mission to make sure it's a secret no more.
"They took an oath for us, it was a sacrifice -- that's the least we owe them," Sharon Bouchard said.
Right now there is no law that requires funeral homes, hospitals or morgues to check to see whether one was a veteran before burial. The funeral directors' association says it looks forward to working with the state to come up with a process to enable them to work with the Missing in America Project to give every veteran a proper burial.
The Missing In America Project has interred the remains of hundreds of veterans in 12 states so far. Last Friday, another unclaimed veteran was buried with full military honors in Vermont.
(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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