The public is invited to attend a ceremony Sunday honoring four homeless Southern California veterans, whose remains were unclaimed at their deaths, putting them at risk of enduring burial in paupers’ graves.
Instead, the veterans, who were indigent and have no known family, will receive full military funeral honors at the Eternal Valley Memorial Park and Mortuary in Newhall.
The tribute is part of a national program known as the Dignity Memorial Homeless Veterans Burial Program, which is available in at least 25 cities across the country and has provided burial services to more than 675 homeless veterans since the program started in 2000, according to organizers.
The deceased servicemen to be honored Sunday are Raymond Frajardo, who served with the U.S. Navy from 1957 to 1963; John C. Newman, who was also with the U.S. Navy from 1942 to 1945; Larry Lavine, a member of the U.S. Army from 1957 to 1958; and Edward Goodrich, an Army veteran who served from 1962 to 1965.
Little else is known about the lives of the former servicemen.
The Dignity Memorial network will prepare the bodies and provide caskets, transportation and coordination of the funeral service. The veterans will be interred on April 21 at Riverside National Cemetery, which will provide a grave liner, a headstone or marker and a graveside ceremony, organizers said.
Jim Biby, market director of the Dignity Memorial network of funeral, cremation and cemetery service providers in the Los Angeles area, said in a statement that paying tribute to homeless and indigent veterans ensures that they get “the honors in death that their service in life merited.”
Sunday’s ceremony will include prayers, the laying of wreaths, a gun salute and the military bugle call "Taps." Attendees will be given dog tags engraved with the names of the decedents, and a small reception will follow the ceremony, according to organizers.
Eternal Valley Memorial Park and Mortuary is located at 23287 Sierra Highway in Newhall.
— Ann M. Simmons