Hundreds attend service for unclaimed veterans from Bucks, Montgomery Chester counties
The rumble of thunder echoed across the grass fields and hills followed by stone silence amid a growing wall of black leather, worn patch-covered denim, olive drab and officer whites.
Hundreds stood waiting an hour or longer to pay respects to strangers who they considered brothers. A parade of cars stretched across Washington Crossing National Cemetery to its entrance on Highland Road. Mourners lingered over boxes, gently touching paper name tags.
Some mourners stood flagpole straight at attention in full military uniform for more than an hour, their faces expressionless. Old soldiers leaned on canes, refusing to sit. Others waited with arms respectfully crossed in front of them. No one complained.
The eerie silence was broken only by an August afternoon breeze as it rustled more than a dozen American and military branch flags guarding the ceremonial shelter at Washington Crossing National Cemetery on Thursday. In the center, a wood table held 14 boxes, some wrapped in cardboard, others rectangular plastic containers.
Inside those boxes were the cremated remains of 14 veterans who until then were stored at area county morgues for years after their deaths when no family claimed them. They were the honorees at the monthly unattended veteran service held on the last Thursday of every month at the cemetery.
The four unclaimed Bucks County veterans waited for at least the last six years in a filing cabinet, almost forgotten among the remains of more than 100 unclaimed dead.
Bucks County funeral director Joseph Fluehr provided a hearse to transport the Bucks remains to the cemetery and carved wooden boxes topped with a brass plate each bearing a name, birth and death date and service branch of the four men.
Jack Allison Foust served nine months in the U.S. Navy starting Oct. 21, 1945, as a motor machinist mate 3rd class. The Warrington man died at age 80 on Aug. 29, 2007.
Leo Murphy served two tours in the U.S. Army from 1977 to 1983. He died at age 52 in a homeless camp in Bristol Township in September 2010.
Bensalem resident John M. McClintock, who died at 84 in 2013, served in the military from August 1947 through July 1952, first in the U.S. Marine Corps and then the Navy during the Korean War.
Eugene Gorski, also of Bensalem, died at 84 in 2010. His name was found on an April 4, 1946, muster roll for the crew of the USS Stag, a tanker that was dispatched to the South Pacific during World War II. He served as a cockswain in the U.S. Navy.
This news organization identified the men, and two more in Montgomery County, as military veterans, among more than 200 unclaimed dead in those counties as part of its ongoing project, “The Unclaimed,” which examines the growing burden of unclaimed dead on local governments as well as learn more about who are the unclaimed and why were they abandoned.
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Others interred on Thursday included nine veterans identified from 65 unclaimed dead in Chester County by a 22-year-old college student pursuing a career in forensic anthropology, who was presented with the American flag traditionally given to the family of deceased military members.
Vietnam War veteran Jim Doedderlein is a member of the 436 Chapter of the Vietnam Veterans of America Chester County. This month was the fifth unattended veteran ceremony he has attended with the chapter as an honor guard member.
What brings him here? Doedderlein started to answer, then his emotions took over.
He rubbed his chin as tears filled his eyes and he stumbled for the right words. He settled on three.
“Nobody left behind,” he said.
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His friend and fellow Vietnam War veteran Rick Weimar isn’t surprised there are unclaimed veterans, who may be eligible for a military burial with full honors and are instead languishing in morgues and funeral homes. A guy he served with has a small display at the Cape May, New Jersey, airport called the “Forgotten Warriors Museum,” he said.
“There are people who come and give him their father’s ashes because they don’t know what to do with them, and they don’t want to pay the expense of having them buried somewhere and they don’t want to just keep them,” he said.
In his invocation before the traditional three-volley rifle firing and the solo bugle salute of “Taps,” Rabbi Mitch Triestman, who heads a small congregation in Harrisburg where he now lives, noted the service had drawn local community dignitaries from across the state to memorialize people who were otherwise unnoticed in life, then death.
While not much is known about the 14 veterans, they are now committed to a God who knows them well, said Triestman, a former Levittown resident.
“We call this the unattended (service). What a misnomer that is when we have here over 100, 200 who are attending. It is a testament to a great country called America,” he said. “God bless every one of you coming out here today. God bless you for your vigilance. God bless you for your patriotism. God bless you for being here for this marvelous memorial to say good-bye to those who were literally, relatively unknown.”
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Bucks County Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick, R-1, of Middletown, sat in the front row closest to the table holding the remains. He also participated in the interment ceremony afterwards, placing the remains of one of the veterans in a designated resting place at the cemetery columbarium, a wall-like structure where cremated remains are interred.
His office worked with Bucks Coroner Dr. Joseph Campbell to confirm the men were eligible for military burial. Fitzpatrick’s staff is currently working to determine the eligibility of another unclaimed potential veteran, Robert F. Knoeller. The 90-year-old Warminster man died in March.
Fitzpatrick called the unattended service a moving experience.
“The first thing I thought of was every single veteran, every single service man and service woman who serve our country, they have a story, and some don’t have anyone to come home to when they come home, and, some people, as we’ve seen here, when they pass from this earth they don’t have anybody to claim them," he said.
While they may have been alone in life and death, their names and sacrifices should never be forgotten.
“We have a whole community that can come together to show our veterans that whether you have blood relatives, family or not, you have a family,” he added.
This story originally appeared in the Bucks County Courier Times on Aug. 29, 2019.
This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Hundreds attend service for unclaimed veterans at Washington Crossing
