Editor, the VOICE:
On October 28, 2019 there was a ceremony at Tahoma National Cemetery giving honors to a departed veteran. This is nothing new. What is new is the ceremony was advertised on social media by a professional group of funeral directors as being a ceremony for a veteran that had no relatives and no one to claim his remains. This is not new to we who volunteer to conduct these ceremonies on a regular basis. I have, personally, conducted a ceremony for a veteran whose only other attendee was the funeral employee who delivered the remains. This was for a real veteran, much different than the advertised one on the 28th. Don’t get me wrong. This individual was, by definition of the qualifications put forth by the Veteran’s Administration, qualified by his DD214 separation form as a former member of the armed forces. In this unique case the “veteran” had not completed boot camp when he was discharged for medical reasons. He wanted to serve for which I can give him credit but, the VA’s determination and the subsequent hoopla by the Funeral Director’s Association, only served to demean the honorable and faithful service for the other 45000 veterans resting at the cemetery. There is more to the story.
It was later found out that this man’s father, a veteran himself, was buried earlier in 2005 at the Willamette National Cemetery in Oregon. It was done by the same funeral home and his obituary listed that he had several other local relatives to whom his passing preceded. I find this to be unsettling because it appears that someone along the line did not do their due diligence and continued to portray this individual as being all alone. The other issue is the fact that Tahoma National Cemetery’s infrastructure is incapable of supporting the massive amount of vehicles that showed up on what was a regular work day. As a result of the VA’s scheduling the service during the week when normal services are scheduled, attendees of two other services were disrupted by the lack of planning of such an event. In their defense, however, they had no way of knowing that the funeral home was acquiring a measure of publicity via Facebook. Had they assumed that the public’s turnout would have been the same as similar events in Texas and in Florida, I am sure they would have coordinated the whole thing with the very capable administration at Tahoma. This is what everyone else does.
Getting back to the title, the question of what constitutes the definition of a veteran is not really the point even though, in this case, this individual’s length of service was cut short for medical reasons. The fact remains that, to me as a veteran, even though he had good intentions, he did not meet my criteria for being one of us. I’m sorry, but a matter of degree does matter to some of us.
It should be noted that, at the end of the day, we are extremely appreciative for the show of affection by the community for this event and for the opportunity to be able to serve other veterans.
W. Stephens, a veteran
