My Kingdom for a DD214!!

If you are reading this as a military veteran, you'll understand.  If not a veteran, I'll explain a little.

My brother, a veteran of the US Navy, died suddenly on the last day of 2005.  I've written about this.  He had disowned his only next of kin, his sisters, because he was angry with us about selling our family's farm.  Yet it was up to his disowned sisters to provide him with a funeral befitting a brother and a veteran.  He hadn't spoken to us for years, but we did the very best we could to send him off into the Hereafter with dignity and honor. 

As far as we could determine, he wanted to be cremated and have his ashes scattered over the graves of our ancestors in a remote cemetery near Streator, IL.  We did that on a perfectly horrible winter-weather day in mid-January of 2006.  We would worry about a grave marker later.  There was no "grave", although my family had plots in that cemetery reserved for us all.  Still, he deserves a marker as a veteran, human being, and brother.  The problem, of course, is that we didn't have access to his insurance money.  Anything we do/did was "on us". 

Well....now it is "later".  Seven years later.  Way past time to do something about a marker.  Doug was a veteran of the US Navy.  As such, he is entitled to a free military marker.  I'm up for getting one for him...but there are issues.  For one thing, the county's Recorder of Deeds office has no record of ownership of the cemetery plots where my parents and sister are buried...with other plots purchased for the rest of the Covill children.  Then, too, I didn't know if the cemetery would accept a marker placed on a plot where no body was buried.  Oh...and never mind that I don't have the marker yet.  That's a huge issue!

I am in receipt of online forms to apply for military markers, but they require a copy of the veteran's DD214.  Huh?  I don't exactly know what a DD214 is except that if you want something out of the Veteran's Administration, you have to have the DD214, which is issued when a vet retires or is discharged.  I clearly remember, when my parents retired in 1976 and were applying for Dad's Navy pension, they couldn't find Dad's DD214.  A couple of times on the phone, Mom would yell in jest, "Where's the DD214??!"  Obviously, they found it.  But finding my brother's is out of the question.  Doug wasn't speaking to us at the time that he died, and all of his personal effects, such as they were, were in control of his batty roommate at the time.  If she had the DD214, she didn't know it was important...and we didn't think to ask for it even if she did.  And she is now out of touch.  No possibilities there.

So, here I am poised to get a marker for my bro.  I've talked to the cemetery dude.  I hope to hear from the funeral home in a return call.  I've revisited the VA site to apply for the marker...even sent them an email which has since been returned as undeliverable.  I have hoops to jump through without benefit of the DD214 in order to cough up a marker based on the info that I DO have.  The ball is rolling.  Hope I live long enough to see this project completed!  In this age of computers and databases, why do I need a DD214 to validate my bro's service??????

Stay tuned.  It has to get better, right?