SARASOTA – “The veterans, we don’t know their story and we don’t know why,” says Bob Marrah, Executive Assistant to the Master of the local branch of the Knights of Columbus.
“Right after the cemetery opened, they first buried in 2009, they notified the veterans groups in Sarasota that there was a problem. They were having funerals for people with no families and they would have to stop the workers from digging graves and come up to receive a flag. So they asked if any veterans group or veterans-aligned group would want to do that. So the Knights of Columbus, and I was in charge at the time, said we’d be glad to do that. Did they outlive their family? Are they in the south and their family up north? We don’t know, and that’s not ours to ask.”