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DAYTON — The bodies of two people in 1984 were placed in unmarked graves already occupied by veterans buried nearly a century earlier at the Dayton National Cemetery, its director confirmed Tuesday.
The discoveries were made late last year during a nationwide Department of Veterans Affairs audit of headstone “raise and realignment” contract work performed since 2001 at national cemeteries. The audit was undertaken after similar problems were discovered at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery in San Antonio, Texas.
All told, the audit and a review of burials at Fort Sam Houston found problems at 123 gravesites, the Associated Press reported.
The audit also found that 14 headstones at the Dayton cemetery had been reinserted in the wrong places while a contractor was realigning them in 2003 and 2004. Ten of the 14 headstones marked the place of people buried between 1955 and 1960, while the remaining four headstones were for people who died in 1898.
In the case of the 1984 burials, one person was interred in a grave already occupied by a person buried in 1894; the other person was put in a grave occupied by a person buried in 1907.
The two people buried in 1984 will be disinterred and reburied elsewhere, probably in the next two to three weeks, said Bernie Blizzard, director of the Dayton National Cemetery.
“We really apologize to these families for the impact of these errors,” Blizzard said. “We’re going to cover all the costs of the relocations. We’re going to take care of the entire situation on behalf of the families.”
Blizzard couldn’t provide any cost estimates for the pending relocations. He declined to identify those people who were improperly buried or whose headstones were reinserted in the wrong places, saying their families had not yet been notified.
The audit’s findings were first reported this week by the Washington Post.
Blizzard said nearly 36,000 of the 44,000 burial sites at the Dayton National Cemetery were examined as part of the audit, which took place between October and the end of December. Nationwide, the audit covered 1.3 million headstones or markers at 85 national cemeteries.
The contractor who relocated headstones in 2003 and 2004 in Dayton was a California-based company named Laurical. Blizzard said he was unsure whether Laurical is still in business.
Headstones sometimes must be reinserted in the ground after they are shoved about by the freezing and thawing of the ground.
Michael Nacincik, a spokesman for the VA’s National Cemetery Administration, said national cemeteries now mandate that headstones not be removed from the gravesites before they are reinserted in the ground. And a new burial policy that took effect in April requires officials to verify all grave sites surrounding the spot where the veteran is to be interred.
Nacincik said the audit showed the “vast majority” of contractors did accurate work when relocating headstones.
In a prepared statement Tuesday, U.S. Rep. Mike Turner, R-Centerville, said, “It is shameful that any veteran’s final resting place be disturbed. Our men and women in uniform who have honorably served our nation deserve the utmost respect in both life and death.
“I am glad that the National Cemetery Administration has undertaken an effort to ensure that the graves of our veterans are properly marked and accounted for. ... I look forward to investigating this matter further with cemetery officials.”
The Dayton National Cemetery has an annual budget of about $1.3 million and employs 12 people. During the most recent federal fiscal year — Oct. 1, 2010 to Sept. 30, 2011, 979 veterans were buried there.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-7457 or bsutherly@DaytonDailyNews.com.
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