Indigent vets are going home

For millions of those who have “worn the uniform” and their families, Veterans Day is to honor members of the armed forces past and present.
There are some veterans, however, who lie forgotten and that doesn’t sit well with Pat Toro, Jr. and his “brothers” in Queens Chapter #32 of the Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA).
“There are currently at least 14 homeless or indigent veterans whose bodies are in custody of the New York City Medical Examiners Office,” Toro explained, shortly after the funeral of Joseph Anthony White, on Monday, October 13, provided by the VVA.
“He had already been buried by the city. When they cleaned out his hotel room, they found his uniform. He was a highly-decorated Vietnam war veteran,” Toro said.
Any veteran is entitled to be buried under a headstone in a national cemetery, at U.S. government expense. The problem is that the city is forbidden by law to transport bodies outside the city limits.
“If their bodies are unclaimed, they’re buried in ‘Potter’s field,’ ” Toro said.
Since 1869, “Potter’s Field” has been the traditional name of the New York City Municipal Cemetery on Hart Island, just east of City Island in Long Island Sound.
No one knows exactly how many are buried there; the early records are lost.
Estimates range from 750,000 to 1 million graves; the majority are infants and stillborn. Adults are buried in pine coffins stacked three-deep in rows and columns. The 15-foot by 40-foot trenches or “plots” of 150 coffins are marked by a numbered post.
When Toro’s group heard of the situation from a city administrator, they acted, and “after several months of discussions with the Mayor’s Office of Veterans Affairs and the New York City Human Resources Administration, Chapter #32 was designated as an ‘Organization Friend’ of any indigent or unclaimed deceased veteran in the city,” he said.
This enables the VVA to make funeral arrangements and have their “brothers” buried with honors at Calverton National Cemetery on Long Island.
The program got off to a rocky start. Their first reclaimed vet was Tony Cena. “He was the medic who got to Tommy Noonan [a Woodside resident and recipient of the Medal of Honor in Vietnam] and got hit at the same time,” Toro recalled.
“We assembled at the cemetery and the funeral home delivered him in a van, because the hearse was busy that day,” Toro remembered with a trace of bitterness.
Now, the VVA contracts with Hess-Miller Funeral Home in Middle Village to provide a proper casket and a dignified funeral procession by hearse.
They receive the ceremonial flag, which they keep safely “in case a family member ever shows up,” Toro said.
That happened recently. “We had Milton Finkelstein, a World War II vet. Before we could lay him to rest, his niece called from Colorado and took over,” Toro said, expressing satisfaction that she didn’t have to suffer the trauma of reclaiming him from a city grave.
“Marine Lance Corporal Raymond Gonzalez was buried last January and disinterred when his identification was made,” Toro recounted. “When we called to order a headstone for him at Calverton, they told us he was getting a bronze marker, because he had a plot.”
It seems Gonzalez had buried an infant son in his allotted gravesite years ago, before he drifted into indigence. “He’s where he belongs now, with his family,” Toro said.
They would like to have the remaining veterans laid to rest soon “in a group ceremony - but it’s difficult getting that many hearses on a given day,” Toro admitted.
He speculated that there could be hundreds of veterans who lie unrecognized in Potters Field. After 10 years, the records are sent to the Municipal Archives.
“We’re not even asking contributions,” he said. “Our motto is ‘Never Again Will One Generation of Veterans Abandon Another’ and we’re going to do whatever we can to get those guys out of there.”