Missing In America Project honors 3 unclaimed Amarillo veterans

The Missing in America Project (MIAP) held a ceremony Wednesday at the Texas Panhandle War Memorial Center to pay respects to three veterans discovered among Amarillo's unclaimed remains.

Ronald Bemino and John Burke Halford, both Vietnam-era U.S. Army veterans, along with Douglas Wood, also a U.S. Army veteran, were honored at the ceremony as their remains were placed by members of the Patriot Guard Riders. The Tascosa U.S. Navy JROTC Color Guard from Tascosa High School was on hand for the presentation of the colors, followed by a national anthem rendition from the Randall High School Chorale Show Choir.

Following an invocation by Chaplain Danny Logan, CJ Rowel, president and Texas State Coordinator for MIAP, spoke to the crowd of about 100 people gathered to honor these veterans about the mission of the organization to give unclaimed veterans a proper military resting place. Also speaking at the ceremony was retired U.S. Army Major Doug Messer, who is the unit commander for Volleys for Veterans.

The ceremony included the reading of the names, with a rifle volley, taps and a flag presentation, in which the flag was presented to Potter County Judge Nancy Tanner for her part in getting these veterans identified.

According to Tanner, the city of Amarillo got involved in this project in 2015 when Joel Caver, the Panhandle representative for MIAP, came to her about identifying these unclaimed veterans who might be housed in the basement of the district court building.

“This has been going on since I first got into the office, when Joel came to me about wanting to look at the books on all the unclaimed cremates in the county,” Tanner said. “These men died alone, homeless after serving this country. This is the least we can do for them, is to pay them respect and to give them full military honors.”

She said that she is honored to be able to play a part in paying tribute to these veterans’ service. To date, she has been presented with nine U.S. flags for the nine ceremonies she has taken part in. "This warms my heart to be a part of this," she said.

Tanner said that this is a timely process that the project works diligently to be able to identify unclaimed veterans.

"It is so humbling to know that I had a small part in this; all I did was sign off on the search of the records,” Tanner said. "To receive this flag in their honor means the world to me."

The mission of the Missing in America Project is to locate, identify and inter the unclaimed cremated remains of American veterans, to provide honor and respect to those who have honorably served, and to secure a final resting place for these forgotten heroes.

Carver spoke about the project and its mission to identify these unclaimed veterans. He said that the work starts with asking questions to county courthouses, cemeteries or funeral homes whether they have unclaimed cremains in storage. A lengthy process is started to gather information on the deceased individuals, running their names through databases that identify honorably serving veterans.

During the process, birthdates, death dates, Social Security numbers and other distinguishing information is analyzed. Carver said that a big part of the process is the willingness of these entities to work with them to give them access.

"The hard part of the process is gathering information from willing county judges, funeral homeowners, cemetery administrators and others, to do this research to get these names," Carver added.

According to Carver, one of the unclaimed remains that is being transported to San Antonio was discovered in an abandoned storage unit where it had resided for years.

“The first time I approached Judge Tanner was right after she was elected judge, and I told her what the mission of our project was,” Carver said. “She had shared with me that many families do not claim the cremains of the county's hundreds in their basement.”

At the time, Carver said that there were 350 unclaimed remains to go through, of which he originally researched 100 as to make his way through the unclaimed.

“That first year, we found six unclaimed veterans, of which one family came forward to claim their loved one, which is what we would like to have with a return to the family,” Carver said. “At the bottom of the steps of the Potter County Courthouse, we held our first ceremony for those first five veterans with a small group.”

Carver said since then, his group has found more than 61 veterans who have been honorably buried, along with 20 veterans' remains which were returned to their families in the Texas Panhandle.

These three veterans’ remains will be transported alongside eight from Lubbock and one in San Antonio to the Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery in San Antonio on Friday for their final resting place. The Patriot Guard Riders will travel with the remains to their final destination.

For more information on the Missing in America Project, visit https://www.miap.us/ .

This article originally appeared on Amarillo Globe-News: Missing In America Project honors 3 unclaimed Amarillo veterans