Honoring one who served

58-year-old Navy veteran treated in death with a dignity that was often absent during a life spent in society's shadows

James B. Meadow, Rocky Mountain News

Published August 21, 2007 at midnight

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FORT LOGAN NATIONAL CEMETERY - They buried a sailor Monday. His name was Charles William Bean, but most of the homeless people who knew him called him Billy. Maybe his family would have called him that, too - if he'd had any family.

But he didn't. At least none that could be found.

Which is why after the 11-minute funeral service, as the last quavering note of Taps floated over the weeping willows and into the sky, Petty Officer Carl Altevogt walked over to a softly weeping man in an ill-fitting suit - a man who was all the family Billy had in the world.

"On behalf of a grateful nation, a proud Navy and the president of the United States, I present this flag to you in honor of your friend's faithful and honorable service to our country," said Altevogt, reciting the traditional statement, handing the precisely folded U.S. flag to the man named Matt.

Then, for some reason he couldn't put his finger on, Altevogt felt the urge to add something. Something, as he put it, to "personalize the message."

So, in a voice as gentle as the breeze limping around Shelter B, he added, "I'm sure your friend is happy that you're here to accept this flag for him."

Matt took the flag and held it to his heart as tightly and urgently as the heat held the day. He nodded wordlessly. Just as silent as he would be afterward for the media assembled for the occasion.

He preferred to remain a man with no last name, a man who had lost his best friend and looked like it. Whether it was the moment he accepted the flag or the moment he walked to the steel casket and laid a single red rose on it, Matt's sadness sang its own silent elegy about his friendship with Bean.

"Some people might call Billy unsuccessful," said Jim Rendon, a self-described "street minister" who provides food and essentials to Denver's homeless. "But you know what I think? To at least one person, he meant the world."

Like Bean, Rendon is a Navy veteran of Vietnam. Like Bean, he's proud of that.

Rendon wished he could offer a story, something, about Billy. No, he didn't know he had died of what the coroner called "natural causes" on Aug. 8 - one day after he turned 58. No, he didn't know that Billy had managed to get his own place, get off the streets, recently. Didn't know Billy's rank was seaman apprentice. Didn't know of Billy's aches or triumphs.

"He just didn't stand out like some guys on the street you see," said Rendon. "What do I remember about him?" He paused. "Sense of humor, maybe?"

It would have been no laughing matter if Bean had wound up in a pauper's grave, a serious risk for many of the 250,000 homeless veterans in this country whose remains go unclaimed. But thanks to the Dignity Memorial Homeless Veterans Burial Program, the latest headstone to join the 91,000 that stretch across Fort Logan, the one that rests at Section 25, Grave 235, will belong to Bean.

So perhaps did the rumpled and stained U.S. Navy cap fastened to one of the casket's gleaming handles. Then again, maybe not. No one knew for sure.

But, for some, the details of the day were less important than what the day meant.

Dress whites lit to near incandescence by the sun, Petty Officer Steve Del Rio, part of the Navy's three-man honor guard, said it didn't matter that the dead sailor was a stranger. What mattered was "I find it an honor to serve in this final acknowledgement."

The kind of acknowledgement that maybe eased the quiet grief of a man with slumped shoulders and wet eyes. A man who thought the world of Seaman Apprentice Charles William Bean.

meadowj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2606

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