'We need to honor them': Unclaimed ashes of 20 South Florida veterans get proper interment

WELLINGTON — The unclaimed ashes of 20 military veterans finally have received the honorable burial they deserved.

Ahead of Memorial Day, the national Missing in America Project laid them to rest last month at South Florida National Cemetery in a ceremony that included all the military honors: a color guard, bagpipes playing taps, and a final gun salute.

Karen Church, the Florida director of the Missing in America Project, said the ashes that waited the longest for interment were those of Army Sgt. William Roy Rupp, a World War II soldier who died in 1966. His ashes had remained forgotten at a medical examiner's office for nearly 60 years.

"These veterans risked their lives and for some reason, they went unclaimed,” Church said. “They deserve to be in a final resting place, instead of sitting on a funeral home shelf.”

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Whose ashes were interred at South Florida National Cemetery?

The Missing in America Project, a nonprofit founded in 2007, locates, identifies and inters the unclaimed remains of American veterans. Of the 20 veterans buried April 25, all of whom died in South Florida, 11 fought in World War II, one in World War I and another served in both World Wars. Two fought in Vietnam and one in Korea.

Of the veterans, 10 served in the Army, six in the Navy, three in the Air Force, and one in the Marine Corps.

"We need to honor them," said Church, whose father is a veteran. "They didn’t get a service like other veterans."

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Full ceremony included arch of swords, tolling of bell, three-gun salute

A flag detail kicked off the ceremony at 9:30 am. Uniformed students from Lake Worth Community High School JROTC grouped in two parallel lines and formed an arch of swords.

Roberta Battis, a Missing in America volunteer, led the procession. Each volunteer held a round, wooden urn with the name of the veteran, their birth and death dates, and the branch in which they served.

The 50 attendees placed their right hands on their hearts at the sound of the National Anthem.

Johnny Castro, a retired army veteran, read the names of the 20 soldiers. A soft bell rang 20 times.

Three consecutive shots were fired, for the three-volley salute. Two military members played bagpipes to the rhythms of taps, the national song of remembrance.

Soldiers folded 20 flags into three-corner shapes. The group walked to the columbarium, a wall in the cemetery where each veteran got a niche for their ashes.

Before being placed, an active military member representing the veteran's branch held a final salute.

The names of the 20 veterans were read aloud. They included:

• Army Spc. 4 Stephen Cline, 1948-2021, no specific war period

• Charles N. Papp, 1898-1971, WWI, Army, no specific rank available

• Army Capt. Paul Pinkerton, 1914-2000, WWII

• Army Sgt. William Roy Rupp 1906-1966, WWII

• Army Tec. 5 Harold M. Shaw, 1913 - 1980, WWII

• Army Sgt. Carl A. Weise, 1907-1978, WWII

• Army Pfc. Charles H. Whalen, 1906 - 1977, WWII

• Army Pvt. Marshall Edwin Wilson, 1901-1991, WWI, WWII

• Army Pfc. Theodore Winters, 1935-2017, no specific war period

• Army Tec. John J. Woodard, 1914-1973, WWII

• Marine Corps Pvt. Myron Leslie Yelverton, 1942-1984, Vietnam

• Navy Sr. Randall Thomas Derais, 1969-2020, no specific war period

• Navy Csp. Hugh Warner McCulloush, 1916-1999, WWII

• Navy Lt. John Robert McFadden, 1913-2007, WWII

• Navy Sn. Devin Kent Smith, 1958-2020, no specific war period

• Navy S1 Paul Llewyn Steiner, 1926-2003, WWII

• Navy Sk. 1 Wylie W. Welling, 1908-1975, WWII

• Air Force Ab. William Elwood Baldwin, 1943-2023, Vietnam

• Air Force Sgt. Harry Edward Dupont, 1930-1986, Korea

• Air Force Cpi. Reading Jack Rentz, 1926-2002, WWII

The day gave them 'the dignified burial they deserve to honor their service to our country,' said Marcos De Jesus, the cemetery's assistant director.

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Missing in Action Project relies on volunteers to bury unclaimed veterans' remains

Church has worked since 2010 for the Missing in Action Project. She says the organization relies on volunteers to do the extensive work of finding and identifying veterans remains. She called it an arduous but gratifying process.

“We don't have anything but a name and a date of death,” Church said. “So there's a lot of work to be done.”

First, they reach out to funeral homes and cemeteries to get their permission to access their records for unclaimed remains. Volunteers research the names with a genealogist to identify which are veterans and where their families are. Then the National Cemetery Administration certifies if they are eligible to be interred with honors.

Church says some of the reasons veterans' ashes are left behind include soldiers dying while being homeless, their spouses have passed away or their funerals were not fully paid for. Some families forget the remains.

"This organization could not do what we're doing without the help of volunteers reaching out to the funeral homes, actually going in and doing the research," Church said. "This is definitely teamwork. Not one person could do it by themselves."

Valentina Palm covers Royal Palm Beach, Wellington, Greenacres, Palm Springs and other western communities in Palm Beach County for The Palm Beach Post. Email her at vpalm@pbpost.com and follow her on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, at @ValenPalmB. Support local journalism: Subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Unclaimed ashes of 20 South Florida veterans get proper interment