Schoolchildren held aloft tiny American flags. Old folks in wheelchairs waved. Construction workers removed their hardhats. Motorists climbed out of their idling cars and put their hands over their hearts. Firemen raised the ladders on their trucks in honor.
It was Tuesday in North Georgia, but it still felt like Veterans Day as thousands of strangers saluted a pair of hearses carrying the ashes of seven World War II-era veterans whose remains were never claimed.
A local Vietnam War veteran from Woodstock teamed up with Dignity Memorial and arranged to have the ashes placed in a columbarium at the Georgia National Cemetery – with full military honors.
The project was part of a national effort by the Missing in America Project, a nonprofit that has helped inter the unclaimed remains of more than 4,000 veterans — some from as far back as the Civil War.
The seven veterans honored Tuesday were: Tech. Sgt. John Francis Campbell Jr., Technician Fifth Grade John Embert, Sgt. Robert Erwood Forrest Sr., Pfc. Robert Lee Green, Spc. 1st Class James Sheridan, Capt. Frank Shortley Teasley and Sgt. William H. Wallengren.
The day began at Roswell Funeral Home on Mansell Road, where a bagpiper performed “Amazing Grace” as Veterans of Foreign Wars and American Legion volunteers carried the men’s remains to the waiting hearses.
Stephanye Peek of Marietta and Alicia McComb of Canton were among dozens of strangers who showed up for the service.
“These people fought for our country, and they have no one to be a part of their service,” said Peek, a retired Cobb County physical education teacher whose late father fought in WWII and whose son now serves in the U.S. Air Force. “I want to be a part of it.”
McComb, a retired human resources director whose late husband served in the Vietnam War, said, “We were raised to honor our veterans.”
Col. Wallace Steinbrecher, a Georgia National Guardsmen from Talking Rock, sat a row behind McComb and Peek. He learned of the event from his wife, who heard about it on the news.
“There is not enough we can do for these people,” Steinbrecher said.
Accompanied by long and winding motorcade, the hearses traveled west on Georgia 92 through Roswell and then Woodstock and up Interstate 575 to the cemetery in Canton. Hundreds more strangers were waiting in the bitter cold when they arrived.
John Newport, a retired Marine Corps master sergeant and Vietnam War veteran who helped organize the event, led them in the Pledge of Allegiance. A ceremonial rifle team fired three volleys. Then a bugler sounded taps. Two planes flew in formation overhead, smoke trailing them.
A cold wind rustled the fall leaves as uniformed troops unfolded and folded three U.S. flags for everyone to see. They presented them to Jan Johnson, whose 22-year-old son Spc. Justin Johnson was killed by an insurgent’s roadside bomb in Iraq.
Among those who showed up to observe the proceedings was Kristina Engelhard, a homemaker from Roswell who brought her 8-year-old son Devin. As she traveled with the motorcade from Roswell to the cemetery, she was struck by the unanimity she observed among the people standing along the road and waving U.S. flags.
“That was absolutely beautiful,” she said. “We put aside for today all of our political beliefs, our religious beliefs, our beliefs on what is going on in the world — and set it aside so that we can take care of these seven men who fought for us.”
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