Cemetery Worker Makes Shock Move When WWII Vet Needs Help Getting to Wife's Grave
This guy really got carried away — in the best of ways.
Any cemetery visit paid by an aging spouse to the resting place of a lifelong mate is going to be an emotional affair.
But when the cemetery is the majestically somber Arlington National in Washington, and the spouse is a World War II vet paying what is likely a final visit to his wife’s grave, something very special can kick in.
That’s what happened when a 96-year-old veteran and former POW from World War II wanted to see his wife’s grave at Arlington on Saturday — and needed extra help to get to it.
According to WTTG, Fox 5 in D.C., North Carolina resident Greg Boone was visiting the capital with the Honor Flight Network, a nonprofit organization that helps fly veterans to Washington to see memorials to the military.
Boone and his group had visited Arlington’s Tomb of the Unknown Soldier when Boone said he would like to see his wife’s grave too. Boone’s wife of 56 years, Alma, was buried in Arlington as a military spouse after her death in 2007.
At first, it looked like there wouldn’t be time to cross the vast cemetery and return in time for the Honor Flight group to keep its schedule, WTTG reported.
“I just sort of gave up on the whole thing and thought I would have to visit her from that distance,” Boone told the station in a Skype interview.
But an employee at Arlington and a volunteer with Honor Flight had another idea. The employee, who wanted to remain anonymous, according to WTTG, actually carried the aging veteran to see his wife’s grave.
Check out WTTG’s coverage below:
Any human with a beating heart would be touched by a story like this. And plenty of people on social media responded.
Beautiful & Heartbreaking God bless this Veteran
God bless the one to carry him— RNR Kentucky (@RNRKentucky) April 30, 2018
That was awesome!!!! Hat’s off to the gentlemen that help him see his wife’s grave for the last time
— Fayedainese (@Fayedainese1) May 1, 2018
Hat’s off indeed. America owes a debt to all the veterans who’ve protected this country through the years, as well as the spouses like Alma Boone who kept the home fires burning when it counted.
The debt is too big to ever be fully repaid, but that anonymous cemetery worker and the Honor Flight volunteer made a mighty stab at a small part of it on Saturday.
Honor Flights have built a reputation on serving veterans in some surprising, satisfying ways, but on Saturday, at the last home of heroes that is Arlington National Cemetery, something very, very special kicked in.
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