Organizers say 'Operation Headstone' officially back on track
It wasn't the first time local organizers launched "Operation Headstone," an effort to mark the graves of deceased military veterans who have no gravestone.
The first effort began in 2020, but after some early success, the operation fell by the wayside.
On Thursday morning at Union Cemetery, organizers and supporters said trying again is the right thing to do.
"We don't always get a second chance in life. This is our chance to finish this," said Jim La Mar, who was president of Greenlawn Funeral Homes and Cemeteries before retiring last year.
It was La Mar who led the earlier Operation Headstone, focused on Greenlawn's two cemeteries.
“I carry on my shoulders the responsibility that it never got finished,” he told attendees. And he vowed this time would be different.
Earlier this year, the cemetery professional was hired out of retirement by Anthem Partners, a privately owned operator of cemeteries and funeral homes.
His new employers, La Mar said, are four-square behind the idea, but this time he decided to ask the two other private cemeteries in Bakersfield to join the effort.
"I'm sad that I couldn't see it get finished, but I'm excited that with the help of others, we can expand this, and this program can be all of Bakersfield, not just the Greenlawns."
"So we have Greenlawn Northeast participating, Southwest participating, Hillcrest Cemetery, Union Cemetery," he said. "We have Basham Funeral Care helping with the admin portion of it, as well as the (Kern County) Department of Veterans Service with Jose leading that up."
Indeed, Veterans Service Director Jose Lopez told The Californian two weeks ago that he is committing employee hours to the effort to make sure every vet's grave has a marker. It's more than a necessity, he said. It's a duty.
"That is no small feat," La Mar said of the job facing Lopez's team.
"So many names will be turned into them, and they have to do their due diligence," La Mar said.
They will have to search archives to make sure each individual qualifies. They will have to access service records, the veterans' discharge papers and complete the forms to apply for a headstone from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
The VA furnishes at no cost a headstone or marker for the grave of any deceased, eligible veteran in any cemetery around the world, regardless of the date of death.
No one knows how many unmarked veteran graves there are in Bakersfield, but La Mar believes, among all of the cemeteries in the city, the number could be as high as 500.
U.S. Navy veteran Bill Potter, a longtime member of VFW Post 97, was among the first to alert Greenlawn that there were deceased veterans in graves and mausoleums, with nothing there to identify them to a visiting relative or even a stranger just passing by.
The problem began to dawn on Potter and other veterans when they volunteered to place small flags on the graves of vets for Memorial Day. A cemetery employee would accompany them to identify which were veteran graves.
That's when the group of volunteers began to realize there were a number of veterans, many who had been there for decades, with no stone marker.
"As a vet, when I went out and saw that, I was hurt and I was angry," Potter said.
No one who has served in America's armed forces ever suspected that they might someday be laid to rest in an unmarked grave, he said.
Potter and Vietnam veteran Ed Gaede agree it's a problem that must be fixed.
"It's a blessing that this ball is rolling again," Gaede said of Operation Headstone, Part 2.
"These veterans," he said, "will finally receive a lasting tribute to their legacy and to their service and sacrifice to our nation."
