Military burials bring final dignity to homeless veterans

Stars and Stripes ^ | September 18, 2012 | Megan McCloskey

[Rabin]

64-year-old Dunagan, collapsed on a street of this Midwestern city last month and soon died, he was homeless and sorta alone — one of the 130,000.

Instead of being buried in a pauper’s grave — an ending that would have reinforced his "anonymous" years — the Vietnam veteran was recognized as Army Sgt. Patrick Dunagan and honored with a military funeral.

[Rabin]

There was a point in time that R would have crammed it all , rather than leave him in a wreck. This afternoon, I drove past him and a small dog, at an entry to Wallies.

GGoM, I got to do better than that, Rab thinks.

[Gene Eric]

I have contempt for the abled bodies that game the system, and squander the resources that are meant to help the lost, especially those individuals that have also served the Country.

[jonascord]

Considering the hypocrisy of the Leftists who like to go around "thanking them for their service" when these Communists were the same slime that prompted the DoD to smuggle us back into the country in the early '70s, I'd like to know who is going to vote for cutbacks in Vet Affairs funding...

[Docbarleypop]

the VA has been taken over by the left. At every chance VA officials are making our young men and women into wards of the state instead of doing what is needed to rehabilitate and release. I am not saying that the VA is not needed but it has become a self serving beurocracy on its own. Eg. my sister who served honorably in the Navy Band, was diagnosed with PTSD. She had depression, the closest she came to a warzone was San Diego’s Battle of the Bands!
I am not saying cut the VA’s funding but hold them accountable.