500 grave markers to be bought for veterans

500 grave markers to be bought for veterans
By John Finnerty

Pennsylvania plans to buy close to 500 grave markers this year, a Veterans Affairs official said Wednesday.

For decades, Northumberland County has honored veterans by buying markers indicating the war in which they served for on their graves, said Jim Ruch, director of Veterans Affairs  there. The markers are placed on the graves by local veterans organizations.

On Tuesday, the county commissioners announced that a marker honoring the service of a Civil War veteran from Northumberland County had been returned by a veterans organization in New York state. That marker turned up in an antique store where it was discovered by Army veterans Bob Breen, a member of an AMVETS Post in Montezuma, N.Y., said Bill O’Hara, commander of that post.

Montezuma is a small town about 200 miles north of Sunbury.

County officials said the marker will be returned to a veteran’s grave. O’Hara said he was glad to learn that the marker will be put back to its proper use.

Ruch said the five-inch bronze star doesn’t include any kind of stamp to indicate when it was made so it’s unclear exactly how old the marker is.

It’s also unclear how the marker came to be in New York.

The marker could have been stolen by a collector or by someone seeking to sell it to such a collector, or there could be a more innocent explanation, Ruch said. It could be that the veteran’s descendants moved and took the marker as a memento, he said.

The county is making no large-scale effort to determine how many markers have disappeared over the years, he said. A more immediate concern is keeping pace with the placement of markers for veterans who are dying, he said.

“We’re behind,” said Ruch, who was hired in August. “At some point, they got behind and the (veterans) organizations didn’t have enough markers” to place on all of the graves that should have them.

Since August, the county has placed markers on 90 graves of veterans, he said. For the coming year, the Veterans Affairs office plans to buy 340 markers for World War II veterans, 100 markers for Korean War veterans and 50 markers for Vietnam veterans, Ruch said.

The markers being placed on graves are aluminum covered in a bronze coating. Each marker costs the county about $5, Ruch said.