The burial of 20 indigent veterans Wednesday at Dallas-Fort Worth National Cemetery came with the unsettling fact that 13 of those veterans would be buried without investigators able to find any next of kin.
But for one North Texas family, hearing the name of Bobby Gleason on WFAA the night before brought at least some of their years of questions to an end.
“I would pray every day that, I always wondered if something happened to him would they be able to find us,” said Margie Johnson from her home in Oakwood, Texas near Palestine.
Tuesday night a cousin in Dallas heard Bobby Gleason’s name in WFAA's story about the pending veteran burials. That cousin called Margie and yes, Bobby was the brother she’d been searching decades to find.
“I didn’t sleep a bit. I tossed and turned all night long,” Johnson said, unable to sleep until she could call the Dallas County Medical Examiner's Office the minute they opened Wednesday morning.
“I don’t want to believe he was homeless. I don’t want to believe that,” she said.
What she learned is that her older brother Bobby Gleason, 71, the salutatorian of his high school class in Oakwood back in 1964, died alone in a Dallas hotel room August of last year.
The family lost contact with him after he retired from the military and after his mother died three decades ago. Investigators were able to find only two potential family contacts for him: a brother in Houston who could not be located and also a phone number for his late mom.
Broadcasting his name on television, with the help of the DFW National Cemetery and the Dallas County medical examiner, was the only way Margie would learn that her brother had been choosing to live on his own just two hours north of his hometown.
With information provided by investigators, Johnson was able to reach the hotel manager where her brother was found.
“The manager told me today he had been living there for years. She said he was a good man,” Margie told WFAA.
Unable to make the trip on short notice to the midday funeral service for her brother and the other 19 veterans, Margie Johnson watched a live video feed of the service from her home computer.
When her brother’s name was announced, it became painfully final.
She exclaimed, “Oh my God,” then hung her head and began to cry.
But sadly, her family is not alone. On average, the DFW National Cemetery inters 40 “unclaimed” veterans a year: veterans for whom no next of kin can be found. Estimates for similar burials across the country each year run into the thousands.
But for complete strangers to honor her wayward brother by offering an honorable burial befitting his military service, for that Margie is thankful.
“That means the world to me. Because he was actually being honored today. It’s sad for me, but it’s a blessing also that they thought that much.”
Now, as she plans her visit to her big brother’s grave, the search begins anew for answers to why the brother who left home to join the Air Force when Margie was just eight years old, never chose to contact his little sister and make the short journey home.
