Coming home: Pueblo veteran buried as 'unclaimed' in New York will be returned to Colorado (2024)

When the steady flow of calls and texts from their 60-year-old brother in New York suddenly stopped in late January, 2022, Alvin Pugh’s family in Pueblo figured he’d lost his phone again. They’d hear back as soon as he found it, they were sure.

As unreturned messages stacked up, worry turned to fear.

Alvin’s siblings knew he lived in an apartment in the Bronx, but they didn’t know the address. Like so many relationships in a direct-connect mobile world, they only ever engaged with him by cellphone, and didn’t know any of his friends or roommates, much less how to reach them in a city of 8.3 million.

His sisters, Patti and Theresa, immediately got to work, calling “every VA hospital in the five boroughs.” None were treating or had a record of admitting their brother, an Air Force veteran who served in the Persian Gulf and was honorably discharged after 14 years.

The coroner had no record of his death, but Patti said police told her she didn’t have the information needed to file a missing-person report. And really, how could she possibly know, from more than 1,700 miles away, if Alvin was actually missing? Maybe he just didn’t want to talk.

“Um, no,” said Kennedy Pugh, scoffing at the thought of his brother ghosting his tight-knit family, during a late April conversation at the Pueblo home several of them now share, the same address Alvin used when he enlisted in the military as a young man.

“If he was alive, he would have found a way to call and let us know not to worry,” Kennedy said.

More than two years after the Pugh family last spoke with Alvin, in mid-March, Patti realized it had been a while since she’d done a Google search for her brother’s name. More out of habit than expectation, after so long with no closure, she typed in the first letters and let auto-fill do the rest. This time, the results made her heart leap to her throat.

A new entry, to a page at Findagrave.com, topped the list.

She clicked the link and numbly tried to digest what she read. It was only the barest of basics, but it was enough.

Air Force Staff Sgt. Alvin J. Pugh died Feb. 2, 2022, and was buried a year later, in Section 51A, Site 2098, of Calverton National Cemetery on Long Island.

He’d been laid to rest by strangers, as an “unclaimed” veteran, with no known next of kin.

It's a heart-breaking situation when true, as it is for thousands of veterans each year.

An avoidable travesty when it's not.

“All they had to do was Google his name, or look at the address on his enlistment forms. We’re still here,” said Patti, who said her brother— who was unmarried and had no children — listed her as his next of kin and contact on military paperwork.

Kennedy Pugh said knowing the final injustice visited on his brother, combined with the bottled-up grief of years as they’d held out hope and searched for answers, was overwhelming.

“I've never been so hurt, sad and angry,” Kennedy said. “I lost my brother, and the way things were handled, it was like he didn’t matter. His family … his service to his country, his father’s service, his life … none of that mattered.”

The family patriarch, Herbert Pugh Jr., lied about his age so he could enlist in the military when he was 14. Herbert survived his “boy soldier” service in World War II and returned home to start a family and raise his seven children to love one another, their creator and their country, with an understanding that responsibility is character, not convenience.

“If you trip over something, don't leave it for the next person to trip over,” said Kennedy Pugh. “In some ways, we feel that maybe God kind of chose our family to be the voice to make sure that this never happens to another family.”

Alvin was a only about a year older than Kennedy, and the two grew up like twins, at home and in school.

“He was very, very intelligent, and very independent in so many ways,” Kennedy said.

Money was tight, so Alvin approached his parents with a proposal: If he got accepted, and got a job to pay for tuition, could he attend private school in Colorado Springs?

“Next thing we knew, he was commuting to Colorado Springs to go to St. Mary's (High School),” Kennedy said.

The world was his oyster, but like his father Alvin was drawn to the military, specifically intelligence work. Once he’d joined the Air Force, and was pursuing that path around the nation and world, the details he could share with his loved ones became scant.

“He was very kind of cryptic with a lot of the work that he did in the Air Force,” Kennedy said. “During the time he was in Germany, it was really difficult to be in touch with him.”

Once Alvin returned to the states, however, and ultimately separated from the military, he was entirely present, an open and accessible book, even though he chose to settle in a city half a nation away from his old stomping grounds.

In 2013, Kennedy and Alvin escorted their father, Herbert, and their two uncles— all veterans— on an Honor Flight to D.C.

“That was the last time I saw my brother,” said Kennedy.

After the family learned of Alvin’s death, Patti led the charge to contact official sources seeking, first, information and then answers as to how this possibly could have happened, especially to a veteran who couldn’t have been further from alone. Call a Pugh in Pueblo and, if they’re not family, they can probably put you in touch.

According to a timeline Patti pieced together from documents and conversations— as well as details supplied by the VA— this is what happened to Alvin Pugh, and where the critical information through-line broke down and failed him:

Alvin Pugh’s Bronx flatmate returned home Feb. 2, 2022, to find he had died, and called 911. Alvin’s body was collected by the New York City Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, where an autopsy determined his death was caused by a bilateral pulmonary embolism triggered when a clot in his leg broke free and migrated to his lungs. Fingerprinting confirmed his identity, said Patti, and the investigation began to find connections he’d had in life.

According to the New York City Department of Veterans Services, “as part of their process to identify an unclaimed decedent’s next of kin, the New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner performs a standard due diligence process that includes review of all available case information, including the scene/death investigation report, medical records or information reported by an available informant and attempts to call any available next-of-kin leads or phone numbers,” said VA Press Secretary Terrence Hayes, in an emailed response to questions from The Gazette.

Hayes said that research also reportedly included searches of public and social service records, and “inquiry to the Department of Homeless Services.”

Patti said she believes that when her brother’s name came up as being affiliated with that agency, Homeless Services, even though a check of department records showed Alvin Pugh wasn't a client, prior assumptions were confirmed.

“He wasn’t homeless, he worked for them … with homeless veterans trying to help them get their benefits,” Patti said.

Though Alvin wasn’t under VA medical care at the time of his death, according to Hayes, Patti said photos taken at his apartment showed prescription bottles from a VA pharmacy, which allowed the medical examiner’s office to connect the dots.

The Office of Chief Medical Examiner referred the case to the New York City Department of Veterans Services on March 7, 2022, said Hayes.

“As the determination had been made by Office of Chief Medical Examiner that Mr. Pugh had no known next of kin, the New York City Department of Veterans Services initiated the process to have him provided a dignified burial in a national cemetery,” Hayes said.

A dignified burial, as an unclaimed veteran.

Because Alvin’s remains were under VA purview, his name never was entered in the NamUs database, a list of information provided by medical examiners and coroners about New York City decedents with known identities, but whose bodies are unclaimed and no next of kin found. Nonetheless, that was the advice Patti said she got from the city medical examiner’s office in the weeks after she lost touch with her brother: Keep checking.

“And I have been searching that database looking at dead bodies, so many dead bodies … ” Patti said. “He was never one of them.”

While their brother's body languished in a morgue awaiting burial at Calverton National Cemetery, his family continued their quest, even engaging a private investigator.

Staff Sgt. Alvin Pugh eventually received his final salute on Feb. 21, 2023, more than a year after his death.

Hayes said before the interment in New York was approved, the National Cemetery Administration checked Alvin Pugh’s benefits claim and pension forms to make sure he was eligible for military burial, and to confirm he listed no dependents.

“That doesn’t mean a person doesn’t have next of kin,” Patti said.

Since learning her brother’s fate, she and her family have been fighting to get someone to take responsibility for what happened, and make things right.

Bring Alvin back home, for reburial in Pikes Peak National Cemetery in Colorado Springs, and take steps to ensure what happened to him never happens to another veteran.

“The VA blamed the medical examiner’s office, and vice versa, and nobody wanted to step up,” said Patti.

Late last week, on the eve of Memorial Day weekend, someone finally did.

Pueblo Air Force veteran Alvin Pugh is coming home.

Hayes said the disinterment from Calverton and reburial, with full military honors, in Pikes Peak, had been authorized. While details are still being worked out, and will depend on decisions by the family, he said the entire process will be carried out at “no cost” to them.

“We at VA offer our deepest condolences to Mr. Pugh’s family, and we are working with them directly to provide any support we can,” Hayes said.

He also offered a "mea culpa" on behalf of the VA, as well as details about initiatives, already in the works, creating a more responsible framework for following up when a veteran's paperwork, or the reporting municipality, indicate they died alone.

For veterans whose deaths did not occur in VA facilities, "VA generally relies upon the reporting municipalities and professionals (coroners, medical examiners, and funeral directors) to contact veterans’ next of kin,” Hayes said.

“While those efforts were made in this case, New York City was unable to contact Mr. Pugh’s family before facilitating his interment in one of VA’s national cemeteries,” Hayes said. “However, as Mr. Pugh’s family notes, VA did have contact information for Mr. Pugh’s family in a separate records system at the time of his interment.

“We deeply apologize for not identifying that before his burial, and we are taking steps to prevent this from happening again in the future.”

Measures include more outreach to funeral homes and coroner's offices, and a revamp of the responsibilities of the “specialized Indigent Veterans and Unclaimed Remains Coordinators,” on staff at every regional VA office.

Those coordinators are “required to utilize all evidence of record in the VA applications available to them, as well as communicating with the Veterans Health Administration point of contact, to exhaust all attempts to locate a next of kin,” Hayes said.

“Providing all veterans— including those whose remains are unclaimed— with the lasting resting places and memorial services they deserve is a top priority for VA,” Hayes said. “We are conducting a full review of our policies to do whatever we can to prevent this from happening again.”

Patti Pugh said Thursday that she is “thrilled” to learn her brother’s remains will be returned to Colorado, and a national cemetery that’s just up the interstate. A grave they can visit, where— when the time comes— they can gather, as the family and friends who knew and loved him, to say goodbye.

“This is what we wanted, closure, honor for our brother … but we’re just one family,” Patti said.

Who knows how many veterans, buried as unclaimed or waiting their turn, actually have family who may still be searching for them, who may have no idea, even, that they had died?

And that speaks to a bigger injustice, the heartbreak at the heart of so many others, Patti said.

Homeless veteran, unclaimed veteran, are terms no one should ever have to use, ever, she said.

“It just shouldn’t exist, because we shouldn’t let it."