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Anchor Marco Werman talks to Major Fred Salanti, executive director of the Missing in America Project about his work, giving war veterans’ unclaimed cremated remains a proper burial. Download MP3
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MARCO WERMAN: I’m Marco Werman and this is The World. On this Memorial Day American honored those who fought and died for their country. One organization is honoring 26 in Dearborn, Michigan today. They are veterans whose ashes were never claimed, but are finally be interred. It turns out that the remains of hundreds of cremated soldiers have been stored in mortuary basements and closets for more than half a century. The Missing in American project is finding them. Major Fred Salanti is a Vietnam vet and the Executive Director of the Missing in American project. He’s in Salt Lake City today. Major, for you MIA is not missing in action, it’s Missing in America, which in some ways is even more tragic. How did you get Missing in American project started?
MAJOR FRED SALANTI: Well, we started to go to cemeteries to find that they had services for individuals that were homeless or indigent or had no money and they were having a service once a month to honor everybody that had died. As we went to these services, we found nobody was there, so we started to come together and get people to come and show our honor and respect so that nobody could pass by themselves. As we did this, we found that there was another problem, in that funeral homes had stored remains that either nobody claimed, or for a variety of reasons, the last known next of kin was unidentified. They, then were trying to find a method to have these people buried properly with honor and respect. The Missing in America project started by saying we will come and volunteer our help to bridge the gap between the Department of Veteran’s Affairs and the validation process to make sure that somebody is a veteran for soldiers who basically put their life on the line for us and came home and through circumstances, some of their own doing, maybe not some of their own doing, they are now remaining without the proper burial and honor and respect.
WERMAN: Now the word “cremain” has actually been coined to indicate the remains of a person who was cremated. Interestingly, it turns out that veterans are only a small portion of the unclaimed ashes in the U.S. So this is not just limited to veterans. Why so many unclaimed “cremains” across the board?
SALANTI: Generally, in some of the cases of records we’ll see somebody that said hold, we will come and pick him up in two weeks, and that’s 24 years ago, or 34 years ago, or in some cases a spouse will die and they’ll say keep them at the funeral home and when I die put me with them. Then they maybe get put in a care facility, maybe they get Alzheimer’s, maybe they move. All of a sudden there’s somebody left somewhere and there is no record of the last known people to notify.
WERMAN: What is the percentage of veterans among the unclaimed “cremains” that you found so far?
SALANTI: We generally find that there’s a minimum of 10%, but up to 30% of the “cremains” that we research and look at, turn out to be veterans. And, of course, the hardest part always is even when we do find the veterans and we’re able to honor, like the 26 today, you still have to shut the door on people that are not and my concern is always who helps them?
WERMAN: Now some of these “cremains” go way back for these veterans.
SALANTI: The story of some is 1800′s onwards. We’ve had 1888′s, 1890′s. The ones at the Oregon State Hospital were from 1890 to 1971 and there was 3,500 and some in that storage facility itself. So we’re talking long periods of times. I think the very story of Dearborn is a perfect example. One of the gentlemen, Sergeant Valley was 68 years on a shelf. And nobody realized that he was still on a shelf. They actually had a service, the family went, they walked out the door and they thought something had happened, and what happened was he stayed on a shelf.
WERMAN: That’s really sad.
SALANTI: So we have to do something about it.
WERMAN: So it’s turned into a major investigative operation, the Missing in America project. What are some of the things you have to do to connect those “cremains” with their surviving relatives?
SALANTI: Well, the first is that when somebody passes, it takes a special act to be cremated. Somebody has to sign a disposition form, whether it be the state, the government, or a family member, and that’s the start. And then you have to go back and maybe go to genealogy sites, you have to sometimes go to the Social Security database, you have to go to old DOD records from World War I, World War II, sometimes we have to actually involve the FBI. Sometimes some of these people take a couple of years to verify just to bury one person.
WERMAN: And this is part of what you do. You go around to cemeteries in the U.S. on your motorcycle to make sure someone will be there for those funerals.
SALANTI: Partially. Luckily I go as the Executive Director to try to find new recruits and to find new people and to help spread the word. Luckily I have tons of local volunteers that do this locally in each of their areas. And so coming up in Santa Fe, New Mexico next Thursday we’re doing a wonderful service. In Kentucky they’re having 32 veterans and 9 spouses on the 12th of June.
WERMAN: You’ve even been given a nickname for your efforts.
SALANTI: Well, I become very emotional as I discuss this because I am probably one of the Vietnam veterans, as there are many others that could find ourselves in this very position. We have to do this. So when I give a speech and talk about it, I become very emotional and I obviously have tears and everything else, so my friends have nicknamed me waterworks because I can’t keep a dry eye and in some cases I can’t let the audience have a dry eye either.
WERMAN: You know, Major Salanti, what you’re doing with the Missing in America project kind of tells me that there’s a large unfamiliarity with cremation. And I know Americans on this Memorial Day will be reminded of images of veterans buried in coffins draped with flags. If a veteran is cremated, is there a different protocol at the cemetery on how an urn is interred? Does it even get a flag?
SALANTI: Everything is exactly the same. And, of course, the Department of Veterans Affairs and our government offers a free burial for veterans and their dependents and they get a 21-gun salute for all the veterans. They get a flag folded. The difference is they have two types of actions, they can put it into the ground just like a coffin, or they can put it in a column burial wall which is called a niche and they have their own private place.
WERMAN: And if a family was so inclined to cast their loved ones’ ashes in the ocean, do they have the right to do that as well?
SALANTI: Oh they have the right to do anything, absolutely.
WERMAN: Major Salanti, as a Vietnam veteran, I’m wondering if your work with the Missing n America project has given you new information or changed your mind about how you eventually want to be buried yourself.
SALANTI: Yes, I think the biggest thing that most of us as veterans that came, I would not even come close to being anywhere near a service, up until a few years ago, but being involved with this organization and being able to show the honor and respect and pride that we have, and to see a group of 40, 50, tough Vietnam veterans shedding tears because we’re the only family that’s standing there present for someone that we’re doing a service for is, well, you’re getting the waterworks now.
WERMAN: Major Fred Salanti, the Executive Director of the Missing in America project, thank you very much for your time indeed sir. Have a good Memorial Day.
SALANTI: Thank you.
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