Posted on 01/05/2017 12:29:08 PM PST by Kaslin
Navy veteran Jerry Wayne Pino died on Dec. 12th in Long Beach, Mississippi. He was 70 years old.
We don’t know that much about Jerry. He was born in Baton Rouge and joined the Navy in New Orleans. He was a petty officer third class in Vietnam. That’s the extent of his biography.
No family. No friends. He died alone.
Jerry’s body lay unclaimed for several weeks at Riemann Family Funeral Homes.
“No one stepped forward,” funeral home worker Cathy Warden told me. “He just didn’t have any family.”
Miss Cathy explained the situation to her colleague Eva Boomer and together they decided something must be done to give this veteran a proper send off.
“Something had to be done with respect,” Miss Cathy said. “We had to give him what he deserved. Nobody should go alone.”
Miss Eva, who is also a veteran, wondered if some of the boys at Long Beach High School might be willing to serve as pallbearers. It was a longshot, though, seeing how most of the students were out on Christmas break.
But Miss Cathy called her teenage son Bryce who in turn texted some of his friends – and within a matter of minutes, six young men had volunteered to serve at a stranger’s funeral.
Nobody should go alone.
“It was the right thing to do,” 17-year-old Bailey Griffin told me. “He served our country. He fought for our rights. For him to be buried with nobody there was just sad. I told myself I was going to do it and I did it.”
They buried Petty Officer Third Class Jerry Pino on a Tuesday. The sun was shining and there was a cool, gulf coast breeze meandering through the Biloxi National Cemetery. An honor guard stood at attention.
The boys were smartly dressed in khaki pants and Sunday shirts and neck ties. They solemnly took their places on either side of the flag-draped coffin and escorted a man they did not know to his final resting place.
“I went out there for the service and cried the whole way through,” Miss Cathy said. “He had no one there. This veteran had nobody standing there but these boys.”
But what happened at the end of the funeral was incredibly moving and poignant.
The flag that had draped Jerry’s coffin was folded and presented to the six young men from Long Beach High School, home of the Bearcats.
“It touched my heart,” she said.
It’s just proof that moms and dads are doing something right in Long Beach, that’s what Miss Cathy said.
“Our community is teaching these boys from the heart how it should be – how to care,” she said.
They are still trying to figure out what to do with the flag that draped Jerry’s coffin. It’s being encased in glass – along with a plaque that bears his name.
There’s talk about putting the flag on display at the high school or perhaps inside the locker room where four of the pallbearers play football.
It would be a fitting tribute to a man who died alone but who was buried surrounded by his fellow countrymen.
And oh what a lesson for the rest of us – demonstrated by a group of young boys from Mississippi who committed in their hearts that nobody should go alone – especially a veteran.
Compare and contrast the humane, loving behavior of these young people with the animalistic, fiendish, subhuman behavior of the 4 pieces of human waste who kidnapped and tortured that poor mentally disabled white kid.
This IS America.
What a send-off! This is what we must do to honor those who served their country with their last full measure of devotion.
Petty Officer 3rd Class Jerry Pinto received it. It left no one untouched.
Thanks for the reminder today that not ALL of Humanity sucks. :)
It sure doesn’t.
We see the good in our kids. Those in Chicago are pond scum.
I wonder how many Jerry Pintos are languishing in morgues in Blue states right now?
So when they say teens they don’t mean “teens” like we usually see in the crooked media?
It’s raining on my glasses and keyboard..
Typo: Pinto should be Pino
The reader’s comments are very good
Apparently there was also an Honor Guard at this service, someone who stood at attention, folded that flag, gave it to the boys and did the inscription described.
Pond scum? Pond scum serves a useful purpose. The algae provides food and oxygen, and the tiny critters therein provide food for various small creatures such as fish. The 4 accused of this hate crime serve no useful function, merely taking up valuable oxygen and space.
Some pictures here:
I’ve worked with a number of teens in the past several years. There ARE good ones. And they seem to be growing more in numbers. Almost as if they’ve seen the mistakes of Generation X and the millennials and are determined not to go down that road.
Even one is too many.
Thank you, Jerry.
God bless these people for doing this.
For some reason I can’t help but think these young men were Scouts.
Our American Legion and VFW Posts handle funerals like this more often than people know about. The local Funeral Homes contact the Post Commander to arrange pall bearers, a chaplain, and color guard. With most of the WWII vets gone, our honor guard numbers are shrinking fast.
Mine too, beautiful story.
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