Local Homeless Veteran Receives Military Funeral
Published:
Tue, October 20, 2009 – 5:08 pm CST Last Updated: Tue, October 20, 2009 – 5:42
pm CST
MOBILE, Alabama – It’s estimated that there are over 150,000 homeless veterans across the U.S..
Many pass away with no family or money to see to a proper burial.
One group made sure that a homeless veteran from right here in the Port City got the honor that his Vietnam war service merited.
News 5 photojournalist Gary Arnold takes us to Biloxi where Air Force veteran Anthony Vallia was given full military honors.
With more than 150,000 homeless veterans in the U.S., many whose remains are unclaimed at their death risk burial in pauper’s graves. Through the Dignity Memorial® Homeless Veterans Burial Program, one Mobile-area veteran won’t be among them.
U.S. Air Force veteran Aubrey Vallia Jr. (1945 – 2009) is the first homeless veteran in Mobile to be served by the Dignity Memorial Homeless Veterans Burial Program. The program has existed in other parts of the country since 2000 but was organized in the Mobile area just this summer.
Through the Dignity Memorial Homeless Veterans Burial Program, Vallia will receive a chapel service at 2 p.m. Monday, Oct. 19 at Radney Funeral Home, 3155 Dauphin St. in Mobile, and a graveside service with military funeral honors at 9 a.m. Tuesday, Oct. 20 at Biloxi National Cemetery with interment following.
Vallia, 64, is a Vietnam-era veteran with no home, no money, and no legal next-of-kin to make his funeral arrangements. That’s when Radney Funeral Home stepped in to see to it that Vallia receives a burial befitting a veteran of our nation’s armed services.
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