Okay seriously, if i wasn't pissed off before, this just threw me through the roof!
Of the 100,000 graves established in an Alsip cemetery now considered a crime scene, some 2,000 plots are final resting places for veterans - black soldiers, some of whom signed up decades ago to serve a country that didn't consider them equals.
And officials can't yet say that all those graves at Burr Oak Cemetery, dating as far back as the Spanish-American War, are intact.
Willie Robinson occupied one of them. Tiffany Robinson can't find the grave of her cousin, a 24-year-old Marine reservist killed in a 1998 car crash. She raced to the cemetery to check on his grave from her Alsip home a few times last week before it was shuttered and declared a crime scene. She now fears his was among the desecrated graves allegedly resold for profit.
"Here's a person that was serving our country. Not just me, not just you, but everybody. For them to go and do this is just horrible," she said, starting to sob. "This is seriously more than I could bear."
The Cook County sheriff's department - which has been leading the investigation of a sinister scheme to dig up graves, dump the remains and resell the plots for cash pocketed by four employees - hasn't yet sorted through the records that still exist. Many records are missing, to the chagrin of the 7,000 relatives who've contacted the sheriff looking for loved ones.
"We haven't documented all of the grave sites yet," sheriff's spokesman Steve Patterson said. "But it's fair to say there isn't a section in here that hasn't been violated in some way - whether through neglect or criminal means."
Two thousand veterans have been buried at Burr Oak since its founding in the 1920s, according to the Ilinois Department of Veterans Affairs. Those interred served in campaigns dating as far back as the Spanish-American War of 1898, a spokeswoman said.
Robert Davis commanded the premiere American Legion post for black soldiers in Illinois until this past spring - the Dorie Miller Post 915. And what the retired Marine 1st sergeant would like to do to anyone who touched the grave of not just a human being, but a veteran - a black veteran - he will not stoop to put into words.
"To me, that tells me nothing is sacred anymore," he said.
The U.S. military wasn't officially desegregated until 1948, by Harry Truman, three years after World War II ended. Black soldiers had been enlisting since the American Revolution to fight for a nation that did not see fit to give them full rights.
"African Americans (veterans) had to be honored and buried in certain places because most places they weren't allowed to be buried in, even though they had been veterans and had served in the military," Davis said.
Burr Oak contains a lot of Korean War veterans, whose surviving comrades are members of Dorie Miller, he said.
"The Korean War vets are very upset. You know it's devastating to me - it's got to be devastating to them," he said. "Those are the comrades they went to war with."
Davis will gather names and details at his post's annual picnic Saturday. Then he'll start the phone calls it's going to take to move Burr Oak's veterans to Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery in Elwood, Ill.
"We have to sit and wait until this investigation takes us somewhere so we can try to determine who's been affected and who's not," Davis said. "That's why I'm so frustrated.
When any veteran dies, he or she should be treated with great honor, said Dean Morrell, a commanding officer of the Orland Memorial American Legion Post 111, whose honor guard provides full military honors for veterans in the Southland.
"Unfortunately, there's no one involved to monitor the graves of veterans," Morrell said.
Aside from keeping a list of where veterans are buried, the Illinois VA does not monitor graves in private cemeteries. No state agency or private organization watches them, as perhaps, Southern woman organize to tend to Civil War graves.
"The veterans who are buried at Burr Oak ... experienced and saw during their lifetimes the horror of what war itself was - seeing their friends killed, killing men, and maybe being involved in a society where there were prejudices," Morrell said.
"Not only did they experience suffering at wartime, but to see their families suffer because their graves were desecrated is an abomination that mere words cannot explain."
"Veterans who have served their country with honor should be allowed to rest in peace." (DAMN STRAIGHT!!!)
