A U.S. Marine Corps veteran, whose body had been abandoned and scheduled for burial, has received an outpouring of public support.
Gerry Brooks had been deemed abandoned in the care of Direct Cremation of Maine in Belfast after his May 18 death at an Augusta nursing home. The funeral home posted a public notice June 12 in a local newspaper requesting pallbearers for Brooks’ burial. The six positions were filled in a matter of 20 minutes, funeral director Tamara Sinagra said. More than a hundred others had to be turned away.
“The phone rang nonstop on Friday. We’ve probably had 200 phone calls, if not more, from people who have volunteered to be pallbearers,” Sinagra said. “We have a lot of military organizations who plan to gather their members and show up for the actual service. We’ve had people to be the clergy, pay for a flower piece to be on his casket, to play the bugle, play the bagpipes. We’ve had everybody offering to show their support.”
An even larger group is expected to attend the burial, which is open to the public and scheduled for noon Thursday at the Maine Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Augusta.
The RSVP list includes members of Patriot Guard Riders, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the American Legion and Disabled Veterans of America. The Belfast chapter of the VFW post will be providing its honor guard and color guard and leading the service.
Brooks died at MaineGeneral Rehabilitation and Long Term Care at Glenridge.
His son, who was his next of kin, was notified of his death by the funeral home and the local police, said Sinagra. But Neither Direct Cremation nor the police received any sort of response for weeks, she said.
“Once we had tried for an extended period of time with legal notification methods, we knew that we were hitting a dead end where we still needed to care for Gerry’s body in a respectful time frame,” said Direct Cremation of Maine director Katherine Riposta. “When it’s been almost a month that he’s been here with us, we really feel that it’s best to move forward with this burial.”
A body is considered abandoned after being left unclaimed by any family members after an attempt at contact is made to the next of kin. According to Jim Roberts of the Belfast VFW chapter, the number of such cases is on the rise. This was the second occurrence of veteran abandonment Direct Cremation has faced in the past eight months, Riposta said.
After the notice was posted, a woman who identified herself as Brooks’ granddaughter called the funeral home and said she had not been made aware of her grandfather’s death and that she would be attending the service with her father, Sinagra said. The woman did not respond to requests for comment.
The surge of widespread support for Brooks shows the reach and strength of connections among veterans.
“There is a kinship. There is a brotherhood. We all signed the same contract at one point in our lives, pledging up to our lives. So we all have that brotherhood, that kinship,” Roberts said. “We do not ask for donations. We don’t ask to be paid. We just do this because it’s our honor to be able to respect those who served the country.”
The ceremony will consist of the Belfast VFW, who will lead the service, presenting the flag to the closest family member if they choose to receive it, a 21 guns salute, a performance of taps, and a few words spoken by the VFW post chapter.
“When I placed the service notice in the paper, I was hopeful that someone would step forward and stand in for him where his family has opted not to,” Riposta said. “The outpouring of support from both laypeople and veterans has been overwhelming and really heartening to everyone.”
