Repatriated Americans Laid To Rest At Delaware Veterans Memorial Cemetery
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Press Release August 30, 2007 |
Contact: Christopher Portante |
The remains of 54 Americans were laid to rest in a solemn ceremony at the Delaware Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Millsboro Friday, after making a long journey from their initial resting place at a cemetery in Libya.
The 52 infants and two adults were first interred at Hammangi Cemetery, an Italian cemetery located in Tripoli, Libya, between 1956 and 1970, when the U.S. military operated Wheelus Air Base there. "Family members of Airmen were often buried in the cemetery because, at that time, service members did not receive entitlements to have the remains of their loved ones flown back to the U.S. for burial," said Mark Blair, chief of Air Force Mortuary Affairs.
Not long before major renovations were set to begin at Hammangi Cemetery, U.S. government officials were told that the graves of the American military dependents would be disturbed and that the plans for the new cemetery area did not include a burial site for those remains.
In coordination with the U.S. State Department, an Air Force Services Mortuary Team, led by Mr. Blair, went to Libya and exhumed the remains, taking great care to maintain the individual identity of each set of remains throughout the process. The team brought the remains to the Charles C. Carson Center for Mortuary Affairs at Dover Air Force Base, where they were held while officials exhausted all efforts to contact the families to make final disposition arrangements.
In total, 72 American citizens were repatriated this spring. Of the 72 remains that were repatriated, however, the families of 18 of them chose to have their loved ones interred in various locations. This left 54 individuals without a final resting place on American soil.
Because of the amount of time that had transpired between the original internment and repatriation of the bodies, Air Force officials were unable to make contact with every family. It was through a close working relationship between the Air Force, Delaware state officials and the Delaware Commission of Veterans Affairs that the remaining bodies could be interred in the cemetery at Millsboro.
"I am very honored that the Delaware Veterans Memorial Cemetery is the final resting place for these Americans," said Delaware Secretary of State Harriet Smith Windsor, who attended the ceremony. "Today is the culmination of a lot of hard work and coordination, especially on the part of Tony Davila, Executive Director of the Delaware Commission of Veterans Affairs, and the Air Force."
Among those present at the ceremony were Chaplain (Lt. Col.) Ronald Harvell, Chaplain (Capt.) Robert Roffman, and Father Michael Darcy, who provided Protestant, Jewish and Catholic prayers, respectively, providing for the particular religious needs for the internment of each of the 54 repatriated Americans.
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