Military (Former and Present) Funerals and Repatriations of MIAs Remains

[sneakypete]

Who would have ever dreamed such a thing was even possible when those sailors and soldiers were buried?

My next-door neighbor when I was a kid was married to one of my mother's cousins,and he was awarded a Silver Star as a Seaman E-3 for manning a 50 cal on one of the battle ships under attack by Zeros,and shooting several of them down.

E-3's getting Silver Stars is about as rare as hen's teeth.

The only reason I know about this is his oldest son was around the same age as me,and would invite me into their house to play. One day he invited me back into his parents bedroom,where the citation was framed and mounted on the wall. Up until then,I  didn't even know he was in WW-2.

[mountaineer]

Defense department authorities say the remains of an Ohio sailor killed during the attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, have been identified.

This one is close to home.

+Memory eternal.

[AL]

Fair winds and following sea, sailor.   

[rangerrebew]

'Flags In' at Arlington National Cemetery honors fallen service members for Memorial Day
Ahead of Memorial Day, over one thousand service members placed American flags at approximately two hundred and sixty thousand headstones to honor individuals laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery.

https://www.usatoday.com/videos/news/2024/05/23/flags-in-ceremony-at-arlington-national-cemetery-ahead-of-memorial-day/73824380007/

[rangerrebew]

Honoring Our War Dead
The Evolution of the Government Policy on Headstones for Fallen Soldiers and Sailors
Spring 2003, Vol. 35, No. 1 | Genealogy Notes

By Mark C. Mollan
 

I do not believe that those who visit the graves of their relatives would have any satisfaction in finding them ticketed or numbered like London policemen or convicts.
   —Quartermaster General Montgomery C. Meigs, Report to the Honorable John Coburn, Chairman, Senate Committee of Military Affairs, January 9, 1872.

 

But if he finds his . . . ancestor's name and position in full therein inscribed he will be satisfied that a grateful country had done due honor to the soldier whose sacrifice is one of the proud recollections of his family history.
   —General Meigs, Memorandum, Quartermaster General's Office, February 8, 1873

 

refer to captionEnlarge
This undated photograph shows headstones for Civil War and Spanish-American War veterans lined up to be transported to their final resting places.

View in National Archives Catalog

Montgomery C. Meigs keenly understood the mood of a nation nursing the tender scars of war. As quartermaster general of the Union army, Meigs had choreographed and directed the supply lines that fed, clothed, and armed the largest army in the world for the duration of the bloodiest conflict in American history. As a father, Meigs mourned the loss of his eldest son, Lt. John R. Meigs, who died while on a scouting mission near Kernstown, Virginia. Meigs never fully recovered from his loss, but he found some solace in solemnly laying his son to rest in the newly established national cemetery at Arlington, Virginia.

With similar tenderness and attention, Meigs directed a program that laid to rest hundreds of thousands of fallen soldiers scattered on former battlefields throughout the South and became the genesis of our national cemetery system. Quartermaster deputies under Meigs's command scoured the landscape of the South to locate, unearth, and identify the remains of soldiers that lay in the former battlefields and prison and hospital yards stretching from Maryland to Texas. By 1870, the remains of nearly 300,000 soldiers had been buried in seventy-three national cemeteries. Although temporary wooden headboards were first used to mark the graves of the deceased, Meigs, with his usual diligence, saw to it that by 1879 each fallen veteran, known and unknown, would be "done due honor" with a proper permanent marker at the head of his grave.

https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2003/spring/headstones.html