Latest news with #militaryhonors
Yahoo
03-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Illinois veteran bestowed military honors nearly a decade after death
CHICAGO — Standing near the gravestone for the relative he never met, Mark Bailey accepted the crisply folded American flag from the Army officer, hugged it to his chest and closed his eyes. Though the person he called his aunt — born Reba Caroline Bailey — had been estranged, missing for decades and died in 2015 as an unidentified ward of the state, he felt connection and a sense of closure. 'I want to let Reba know we're part of the circle and part of the family,' he said. Mark Bailey was among dozens of attendees at an unusual funeral service with military honors this week for an Illinois veteran with memory problems so severe that they died an unnamed person. The ceremony became possible because of an extraordinary cold case investigation that identified the 75-year-old postmortem. Investigators unearthed the mystery of how the Women's Army Corps veteran ended up homeless in Chicago with few recollections of their own life, aside from identifying as a man named Seven. 'I never knew I had this family member,' said Mark Bailey's 19-year-old son Cole, who also drove from central Illinois for the service. 'It's nice to know I have somebody that's been found and isn't lost anymore.' Since the investigation's conclusion, the numbered cement cylinder that marked the unidentified grave has been replaced with a rectangular plague with a cross that reads: 'Reba Caroline Bailey, PFC US Army.' The case of Seven Doe, the name appearing in some official records, came to Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart's office in 2023. The unidentified body belonged to a person who died of natural causes in an assisted living facility. They were a ward of the state, unable to remember a legal name or family. The cause of death was heart disease with diabetes and dementia as contributing factors and the body was buried in a section for unclaimed people at Mount Olivet Catholic Cemetery on Chicago's Far South Side. The medical examiner marked it as the 4,985th case of the year and put the number on the headstone. In 2023, investigators ran fingerprints taken postmortem and found a 1961 Army record for the veteran, formerly of Danville, about 140 miles (225.31 kilometers) south of Chicago. The search for close living relatives came up short; five siblings and an ex-husband had all died. The family members they did locate had only heard stories of a relative who had disappeared. After making the identification, detectives ordered a new headstone with the same name on military records. It was quietly installed last year. Commander Jason Moran, who oversees the sheriff's missing persons unit, said it was rewarding to make sure the identified veteran got the benefit of a funeral with military honors. 'It's just a privilege to be able to help families and really close the story,' said Moran, whose work on other high-profile cold cases has gained notoriety. Several generations of the Bailey family have told stories about what happened to their missing relative since leaving the military to get married. They've wondered about the possibility of children or their relative's gender identity. Some believe that there was a family dispute but the stories about its origins vary from the decision to join the military to sexual orientation. Family members tried to find their missing relative over the years, including Amanda Ingram, who would have been a great-niece. She maintains a meticulous family tree with Census records and photos. 'It's amazing how somebody can just disappear like that and not know what happened,' Ingram said this week. 'I'm pretty sure we're never going to know the details.' On a winter day in the late 1970s, a person wearing a military-style jacket and aviator cap was curled up on the porch of St. Francis Catholic Worker House in Chicago. Residents who stayed there at the time told The Associated Press that the person asked to be called Seven, spoke in the third person and identified as a man. Seven quickly became the house cook. The meals drew crowds to the neighborhood where several homeless advocacy groups operated, according to former residents' accounts. Investigators have tried to explain the memory loss and floated theories about brain damage related to a 1950 car accident that killed Bailey's mother or to military service. That included stints at Fort Ord in California, a polluted former Army base, and Fort McClellan in Alabama, formerly used for chemical weapons training, and where the federal government has acknowledged potential exposure to toxins. Neither family, investigators nor residents of the worker house figured out the meaning behind the name Seven. Ingram, who lives in Alabama, couldn't make the ceremony this week. But she asked volunteers from an Illinois chapter of Daughters of the American Revolution to attend on her behalf. 'Everybody who comes to visit that cemetery will pass by it and know who she was,' said Ingram, whose detailed family trees include records using Bailey's birth name. Mark Bailey said he and his son wanted to bring something to the service that would honor both parts of their long-lost relative's life. They had heard their relative had an affinity for the Cubs and looked for a jersey with the number '7' on it, but settled on a blue team cap. They set it on the headstone. The service held Tuesday included prayers, a 21-gun salute and a bugler playing taps — a chilling, 24-note salute that is traditionally played at funerals of U.S. military veterans. Attendees included Cook County sheriff's investigators and Archdiocese of Chicago staff. 'I just wish the rest of them could be identified as well,' Mark Bailey told those attending while pointing to the rows of unidentified graves. Dart, the Cook County sheriff, said the ceremony left him nearly speechless, saying the Illinois veteran deserved military honors and a flag from the U.S. president 'instead of being forgotten and left as an anonymous number somewhere.' Relatives said they planned to eventually display the flag at the American Legion in Potomac, near where the Bailey family has roots. Mark Bailey said the acknowledgement of military service was particularly meaningful with so many veterans in the extended family. He hoped the memory would stay with his son Cole, who plans to enlist. 'For him, it'll be something he'll have forever,' he said.
Associated Press
02-07-2025
- Health
- Associated Press
Military honors bestowed on Illinois veteran identified nearly a decade after death
CHICAGO (AP) — Standing near the gravestone for the relative he never met, Mark Bailey accepted the crisply folded American flag from the Army officer, hugged it to his chest and closed his eyes. Though the person he called his aunt — born Reba Caroline Bailey — had been estranged, missing for decades and died in 2015 as an unidentified ward of the state, he felt connection and a sense of closure. 'I want to let Reba know we're part of the circle and part of the family,' he said. Mark Bailey was among dozens of attendees at an unusual funeral service with military honors this week for an Illinois veteran with memory problems so severe that they died an unnamed person. The ceremony became possible because of an extraordinary cold case investigation that identified the 75-year-old postmortem. Investigators unearthed the mystery of how the Women's Army Corps veteran ended up homeless in Chicago with few recollections of their own life, aside from identifying as a man named Seven. 'I never knew I had this family member,' said Mark Bailey's 19-year-old son Cole, who also drove from central Illinois for the service. 'It's nice to know I have somebody that's been found and isn't lost anymore.' Since the investigation's conclusion, the numbered cement cylinder that marked the unidentified grave has been replaced with a rectangular plague with a cross that reads: 'Reba Caroline Bailey, PFC US Army.' The cold case The case of Seven Doe, the name appearing in some official records, came to Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart's office in 2023. The unidentified body belonged to a person who died of natural causes in an assisted living facility. They were a ward of the state, unable to remember a legal name or family. The cause of death was heart disease with diabetes and dementia as contributing factors and the body was buried in a section for unclaimed people at Mount Olivet Catholic Cemetery on Chicago's Far South Side. The medical examiner marked it as the 4,985th case of the year and put the number on the headstone. In 2023, investigators ran fingerprints taken postmortem and found a 1961 Army record for the veteran, formerly of Danville, about 140 miles (225.31 kilometers) south of Chicago. The search for close living relatives came up short; five siblings and an ex-husband had all died. The family members they did locate had only heard stories of a relative who had disappeared. After making the identification, detectives ordered a new headstone with the same name on military records. It was quietly installed last year. Commander Jason Moran, who oversees the sheriff's missing persons unit, said it was rewarding to make sure the identified veteran got the benefit of a funeral with military honors. 'It's just a privilege to be able to help families and really close the story,' said Moran, whose work on other high-profile cold cases has gained notoriety. Seven's mysterious life Several generations of the Bailey family have told stories about what happened to their missing relative since leaving the military to get married. They've wondered about the possibility of children or their relative's gender identity. Some believe that there was a family dispute but the stories about its origins vary from the decision to join the military to sexual orientation. Family members tried to find their missing relative over the years, including Amanda Ingram, who would have been a great-niece. She maintains a meticulous family tree with Census records and photos. 'It's amazing how somebody can just disappear like that and not know what happened,' Ingram said this week. 'I'm pretty sure we're never going to know the details.' On a winter day in the late 1970s, a person wearing a military-style jacket and aviator cap was curled up on the porch of St. Francis Catholic Worker House in Chicago. Residents who stayed there at the time told the Associated Press that the person asked to be called Seven, spoke in the third person and identified as a man. Seven quickly became the house cook. The meals drew crowds to the neighborhood where several homeless advocacy groups operated, according to former residents' accounts. Investigators have tried to explain the memory loss and floated theories about brain damage related to a 1950 car accident that killed Bailey's mother or to military service. That included stints at Fort Ord in California, a polluted former Army base, and Fort McClellan in Alabama, formerly used for chemical weapons training, and where the federal government has acknowledged potential exposure to toxins. Neither family, investigators nor residents of the worker house figured out the meaning behind the name Seven. Ingram, who lives in Alabama, couldn't make the ceremony this week. But she asked volunteers from an Illinois chapter of Daughters of the American Revolution to attend on her behalf. 'Everybody who comes to visit that cemetery will pass by it and know who she was,' said Ingram, whose detailed family trees include records using Bailey's birth name. Honoring a complicated life Mark Bailey said he and his son wanted to bring something to the service that would honor both parts of their long-lost relative's life. They had heard their relative had an affinity for the Cubs and looked for a jersey with the number '7' on it, but settled on a blue team cap. They set it on the headstone. The service held Tuesday included prayers, a 21-gun salute and a bugler playing taps — a chilling, 24-note salute that is traditionally played at funerals of U.S. military veterans. Attendees included Cook County sheriff's investigators and Archdiocese of Chicago staff. 'I just wish the rest of them could be identified as well,' Mark Bailey told those attending while pointing to the rows of unidentified graves. Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said the ceremony left him nearly speechless, saying the Illinois veteran deserved military honors and a flag from the U.S. president 'instead of being forgotten and left as an anonymous number somewhere.' Relatives said they planned to eventually display the flag at the American Legion in Potomac, near where the Bailey family has roots. Mark Bailey said the acknowledgement of military service was particularly meaningful with so many veterans in the extended family. He hoped the memory would stay with his son Cole, who plans to enlist. 'For him, it'll be something he'll have forever,' he said.
Associated Press
25-06-2025
- Politics
- Associated Press
Zambian government tries to stop a former president's funeral taking place in South Africa
JOHANNESBURG (AP) — The Zambian government filed court papers seeking to stop the private burial of former President Edgar Lungu in South Africa on Wednesday. A hearing took place around an hour before his funeral service was meant to begin. The Zambian government wants Lungu to have a state funeral at home — something Lungu's family have refused to allow because of his bitter political feud with current Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema. Members of Lungu's family, who were dressed in black for the funeral, traveled to a courthouse in the South African administrative capital, Pretoria, for the hearing that would decide if he could be buried. It was not clear when a judge would issue a ruling. Lungu, who was Zambia's leader from 2015 to 2021, died of an undisclosed illness in a South African hospital on June 5 at the age of 68. A state funeral for him in Zambia was canceled twice because of disagreements over the details of the burial. His family and lawyers said he left specific instructions that Hichilema should not attend his funeral, while the Zambian government said Hichilema was due to preside over the state funeral. Zambia's Attorney General Mulilo Kabesha filed papers in a South African court Tuesday seeking an urgent injunction to stop Wednesday's funeral, according to Zambia's national broadcaster ZNBC. The court papers demand that the former president be buried in Zambia with full military honors, as mandated by Zambian law and in keeping with the public interest, ZNBC reported. Lungu's funeral service was due to take place at a church in Johannesburg, around 60 kilometers (37 miles) from Pretoria. Lungu would then be buried in a private ceremony, according to his family. Lungu and Hichilema had a long history of political enmity in the southern African country. Lungu beat Hichilema in a 2016 presidential election, and his government imprisoned Hichilema for four months in 2017 on charges of treason because his convoy didn't give way to the president's motorcade on a road. The move to imprison Hichilema was widely criticized by the international community and Hichilema was released and the charges dropped. Hichilema defeated Lungu in a 2021 vote. Last year, Lungu accused Hichilema's government of using the police to restrict his movements and effectively place him under house arrest. The government denied the accusations. ___ Zimba reported from Lusaka, Zambia. ___ AP Africa news:
Yahoo
25-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Zambian government tries to stop a former president's funeral taking place in South Africa
JOHANNESBURG (AP) — The Zambian government filed court papers seeking to stop the private burial of former President Edgar Lungu in South Africa on Wednesday. A hearing took place around an hour before his funeral service was meant to begin. The Zambian government wants Lungu to have a state funeral at home — something Lungu's family have refused to allow because of his bitter political feud with current Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema. Members of Lungu's family, who were dressed in black for the funeral, traveled to a courthouse in the South African administrative capital, Pretoria, for the hearing that would decide if he could be buried. It was not clear when a judge would issue a ruling. Lungu, who was Zambia's leader from 2015 to 2021, died of an undisclosed illness in a South African hospital on June 5 at the age of 68. A state funeral for him in Zambia was canceled twice because of disagreements over the details of the burial. His family and lawyers said he left specific instructions that Hichilema should not attend his funeral, while the Zambian government said Hichilema was due to preside over the state funeral. Zambia's Attorney General Mulilo Kabesha filed papers in a South African court Tuesday seeking an urgent injunction to stop Wednesday's funeral, according to Zambia's national broadcaster ZNBC. The court papers demand that the former president be buried in Zambia with full military honors, as mandated by Zambian law and in keeping with the public interest, ZNBC reported. Lungu's funeral service was due to take place at a church in Johannesburg, around 60 kilometers (37 miles) from Pretoria. Lungu would then be buried in a private ceremony, according to his family. Lungu and Hichilema had a long history of political enmity in the southern African country. Lungu beat Hichilema in a 2016 presidential election, and his government imprisoned Hichilema for four months in 2017 on charges of treason because his convoy didn't give way to the president's motorcade on a road. The move to imprison Hichilema was widely criticized by the international community and Hichilema was released and the charges dropped. Hichilema defeated Lungu in a 2021 vote. Last year, Lungu accused Hichilema's government of using the police to restrict his movements and effectively place him under house arrest. The government denied the accusations. ___ Zimba reported from Lusaka, Zambia. ___ AP Africa news:
Fox News
03-06-2025
- General
- Fox News
Air Force cadet candidate allegedly slain by illegal immigrant honored with full military funeral
The 18-year-old Air Force cadet candidate who was allegedly killed by an illegal immigrant in a jet ski accident was honored by the military branch during her Saturday funeral. Ava Moore, 18, was set to begin cadet training at the United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) in a few weeks, but was tragically killed while kayaking on Lake Grapevine in Texas over Memorial Day weekend. Moore was laid to rest with full military honors, according to The Dallas Morning News. Full military funeral honors are bestowed upon those who die while on active duty, among others, according to the military's official website. Air Force Academy cadets are considered to be active-duty military members. Full military funeral honors consist of a minimum of a two-person military service detail who provide three core elements: playing Taps, the folding of the flag, and the flag presentation to family members of the deceased. "We lost an exemplary teammate this weekend – Cadet Candidate Ava Moore, whose passion for leadership and service left an impact on everyone she met," said Lt. Gen. Tony Bauernfeind, U.S. Air Force Academy Superintendent after Moore's death. "Ava's constant happiness and attitude helped her squadron get through the challenges of the Prep School, and her drive to excel was on display as she sought out leadership positions to improve herself and her team," he said. "Our team is focused on providing support to Ava's family, her Prep School Squadron, the Prep School Women's Basketball team, and the entire Academy family." Moore graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy Preparatory School on May 19, 2025. She was set to become a part of the USAFA Class of 2029. Moore was hit by a jet ski while kayaking on the lake over Memorial Day weekend. The suspected driver of the jet ski and a man who allegedly helped her flee, both illegal immigrants from Venezuela, were arrested in Dallas last Tuesday. The pair reportedly had suitcases packed when they were captured by authorities. Daikerlyn Alejandraa Gonzalez-Gonzalez, 22, was charged with second-degree manslaughter, a felony. Maikel Coello Perozo, 21, is accused of picking her up and driving away from the scene. Authorities allege Perozo hit another vehicle while speeding off. He has been charged with a collision involving damage to a vehicle and hindering apprehension, both misdemeanors. Gonzalez-Gonzalez remains in the Tarrant County Jail on a $500,000 bond as of Tuesday. Perozo remains in the jail on a $3,250 bail. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has placed detainers on both of them, meaning that when their criminal proceedings and punishments have concluded in the United States, they will be deported.
