Editorial: Offering death with dignity

Monday, Nov. 21, 2005 | 8:29 a.m.

Officials at Woodlawn Cemetery next month will dedicate a special monument to military veterans who died poor and homeless.

The 4-by-5-foot red granite stone will be placed in an area of the cemetery reserved for indigent burials in remembrance of "those homeless veterans who have been forgotten and buried without recognition or honor."

Local social service officials told the Las Vegas Sun last week that some 2,400 of the Las Vegas Valley's homeless people are U.S. military veterans, who are entitled to free burial with military honors at the Southern Nevada Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Boulder City.

All U.S. veterans, homeless or not, are entitled to such free services at the Boulder City facility. And they can pre-register their military documentation so that such services can be offered when they die.

But veterans who are homeless often don't have the documentation of past military service and also lack family members who can provide it. If no one steps forward to provide it after they die, the county buries them in unmarked paupers' graves at Woodlawn.

The stone memorial to be dedicated at Woodlawn on Dec. 2 will serve to honor those veterans who simply cannot be identified. It's hard to accept the thought of someone who served his or her country being forgotten in death. And this memorial is a thoughtful step toward lending these anonymous souls some dignity.