In March 2024, members of Lester W. Chase American Legion Post 9 in Derry, N.H., initiated an ambitious project to document all veterans in their community cemetery. The purpose of the project was to locate and document the final resting place of each veteran buried or represented by a cenotaph in the cemetery to better honor their memory and sacrifice. To quote Abraham Lincoln, “Any nation that does not honor it’s heroes will not long endure.” Over time the veterans’ graves had overgrown and been covered with earth, with many VA footstones subsiding as much as 8 inches below grade, making it difficult and in numerous cases impossible to identify.
During the past 22 months, post members along with members of the community uncovered, cleaned and documented the grave markers of 1,560 veterans, doubling the number of previously known servicemembers in the cemetery. Post members logged 904 service hours over the course of the project. Without the intervention of the post and the community, these servicemembers would have remained lost to history. Now that they are uncovered and visible again, they can be more readily honored again with flags on Memorial Day and throughout the year. The final document lists the names of each veteran, their rank, branch of service, birth and death dates, burial location (street, section, plot and grave) and service details where known. The document includes 33 servicemembers who were killed in action, died of wounds or died in service along with six former prisoners of war, 54 Purple Heart recipients, three Silver Star recipients, and six admirals and generals. You can view the document on the town cemetery website at https://www.derrynh.gov/cemetery. May their memory endure.