An American flag which covered the casket of Thomas Clay is held by a soldier of the US Army during Clay's funeral service at South Florida National cemetery in Lake Worth. Clay, a homeless veteran from Fort Lauderdale, received a full military burial thanks to a national program in which homeless vets are given free burials with all the military honors. (Carline Jean, Sun Sentinel / September 24, 2010)
September 24, 2010 - In life he had nothing: no money, no home, no family.
In death he had a full-dress honor guard, prayers from a holy man and tears from grateful strangers.
Thomas Allen Clay, a Minnesota native, Vietnam veteran and man of the streets, was buried in full military tradition Friday at the South Florida National Cemetery west of Lake Worth, the area's only veterans cemetery.
Five homeless veterans from Palm Beach County have been interred there for free under a national program to honor fallen warriors who had fallen on hard times, but Clay was the first from Broward County. This spared him cremation, or a pauper's grave.
"He gave to our country. He deserved a lot better" than an anonymous gravesite, said a friend, Jennifer Jane Grote of Pompano Beach.
There was a gunmetal gray, flag-draped casket, snappy salutes from white-gloved honor guardsmen and the plaintive playing of taps. Clay's final resting place was among a sun-drenched field of identical white marble tombstones, arrayed in regimental precision. {read rest}
But how many haven't over the years by this Country? And how many will not be, if and when these present wars of choice end, and some fall to the results of in the coming years and long after!
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