The Nevada Veterans Coalition brought its monthly ceremony from Northern Nevada Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Fernley to the Southern Nevada Veterans Memorial Cemetery (SNVMC) in Boulder City on Friday to honor 35 servicemen whose remains also have been unclaimed.
This is the 11th mission for the NVC. Although this is the first service of its kind in southern Nevada, Chris Naylor, superintendent of the SNVMC, said he would like to do the remembrance monthly.
Since September when the NVC conducted its first mission in Fernley with 25 remains, the ceremony has honored veterans from the U.S. Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Coast Guard and Merchant Marine. This ceremony in Boulder City, however, remembers veterans who served conflicts from World War I to the Vietnam War..
Kat Miller, director of the Nevada Department of Veterans Service, said the coalition is helping ensure that every lost Nevada veteran will have a ceremony to honor their service and sacrifice to their nation. Both the coalition and SNVMC said it’s intent for the Bolder City veterans cemetery is to conduct its own ceremonies in the future.
Airmen from Nellis Air Force Base, sailors from an active-duty Navy tenant command at the air force base and soldiers from the Nevada Army National Guard carried the urns.
NVC relied on Bunkers Eden Vale Mortuary for its vast database from which to work; the NVC Honor Guard and various other escorts; the staff at SNVMC for guiding the coalition through the proper procedures to get these veterans home where they belong; and Linda Freeman, who has assisted the coalition in working with different state and federal agencies and funeral homes to identify forgotten military members.
