asking me about where they can get documentations and that will get through that little bit but let's have you tell folks a little bit about your history this isn't the first cemetery that you've been in charge of in the national system well first of all bill thanks very much for having me back i appreciate the opportunity time we can talk about the veterans and the benefits that the neighbor earned i appreciate that opportunity my background stars actually i retired from the marine corps in one nine hundred ninety five i had a short time in the manufacturing industry and then in two thousand and six i i went to the national cemetery administration's director in turn program and i spent a year there in st louis and upon graduation when we i was assigned to golden gate now actually on december twenty fourth of two thousand and seven i was asked to go to hampton national cemetery because the director was retiring so i flew out on christmas eve and spent christmas at one house and in hampton which was a fine phone and i spent about four and a half months there in hampton and then went back to to golden gate where i was transferred to fort custer national cemetery in michigan i was there for nine months and i noticed that the opportunity for the national cemetery in the alleghenies involvement there in director was retiring so i applied and was selected in in march of two thousand and nine i moved here and i've been here ever since well it's interesting because the time you were in hampton hampton roads area down in virginia the time that i first became aware you actually there was an incident that was had arisen that they had found a headstone behind a private property would you like to explain that a little bit well the situation what happened i received a call from the local v a regional office because it was a cemetery issue they felt it was a headstone and then he turned to me and they asked me to go out and meet with the family and determine really what what the story was so i contacted the the lady who had loaned the home at that time and she explained that when she purchased the home she was in the backyard doing some cleaning and she noticed that there was a headstone she immediately contact the funeral director who in turn went to the house   traced the name back to the next of kin and i contacted the next of kin who explained that the head film was in a private cemetery the family had elected to purchase a private headstone the contractor removed the government marker which should have been destroyed and disposed of properly but it was just taken to the contractor's home at that time and then he subsequently sold the home but didn't dispose of the headstone so i'm announced to the new owner she was and the owner of a headstone she was right in the middle of a national news story too as this is so infrequent that it made national news especially virginia being the home of so many military bases that this this became an issue so that's the first time that i had the opportunity to see you on the on the t v and he said you've been here about cemetery for too long but i'm hoping they will let me stay here i really like the pittsburgh area and one of the things that i realized soon after i arrived in pittsburgh is that the folks in western pennsylvania they understand the importance of wonder what the veteran is the meaning of adventure in the contributions of what the veterans have given to america and they really appreciate it and they show that support  to us at the cemetery all the time so we're very appreciative of the local community in the veteran service organizations and community members so it's in so it's a great place to be a director well and one of the nice things and one of my programs i had researched and found that western pennsylvania is one of the highest areas of medal of honor winners in the country which i was by being an air force retired person myself i was very pleased to find that out not that these people had to go through that to earn that medal but in fact that those people from watson pennsylvania did step forward in a time of need and act in an uncommon manner to in fact on that well let's talk about a little bit of  why you're here all right why you're here is to discuss not only the nationals you're on morgan road right eleven fifty eight morgan road our official addresses bridgeville pennsylvania but we're actually right over the county line in washington county and cecil township ok and four from certain peter such as that's basically if they ever fix the valley broad road that's if you see go straight past the dairy bar straight past nineteen on valley broke go up to the hill station keep going straight without any firms you keep going and you go right to your place right and that's that's convenient for us for sure let's talk about how an individual would service of the individual and how we at the national cemetery administration make that determination is through the discharge documents so we always advise family members and veterans to make sure that they have a good legible copy of their discharge document and if you're in after one hundred fifty it was indeed to fourteen if you were in prior to that it could be a variety of different depending on the branch of service the navy had their own discharge document the army had their own discharge documents center but after one hundred fifteen rescues me it was a ninety two fourteen so we asked a family members and and specially the veterans to make sure they locate the documents let the family members know where it's at and safeguard it because that's what you'll need the time you need the process at the time of passing the family will go to the funeral home of course and they'll advise the funeral home and the funeral director where they want the internment to take place if they select the national cemetery the alleghenies or any national cemetery with space and the funeral director will fax that document into our central scheduling office in st louis missouri where all our scheduling  done they have several agents there that will review the discharge document and then they'll determine eligibility and as long as they have a discharge document it's a matter of minutes to  confirm eligibility there's no forms you have to fill out you just have to have the discharge documents though it's a very simple process whenever in the past i believe it was before nine hundred fifty as we discussed earlier you could almost pick out your plot and you know where you wanted to be and everything else but then that became a little befuddled because people then all started started to move other places in the country and the plot as in the golden gate in san francisco that you reserved now you're living in virginia and you die in virginia and they bury their in that lot left and unused until they find that you had already been buried so now you can't secure your spot where you want to be under the big oak tree because the fact that you have so many burials happening each day now right well when the national ran the cemetery system and that time they turned over all the cemeteries except two they kept arlington and then the soldiers merriman's home home in washington d c all those other cemeteries were turned over to the department of veteran affairs so when the army ran this this system up until nine hundred sixty two they did allow reservations in for all the reason to use a said bill it was raining because bill retired or le army in california reserved the spot and then moved on and back in one thousand nine hundred sixty two we didn't have computers you know so it was very hard to track but i can tell you that all of the reservations that were made are still being honored by the department of veteran affairs those reservations are not canceled however we reach out to the family members to try to determine their status and if they have been interred in another site then we can probably use those reservations but if if if the family still desires and they can still have them but you're correct after nine hundred sixty two there are there are no reservations there's no pre selection of sites but the bottom line is you can't make reservations now by those reservations that were made prior to sixty two or is that earlier than that one hundred sixty two was the last time but i can say in our cemetery i say our cemetery national cemetery the alleghenies that opened in two thousand and five so that doesn't apply we do not have any reserve sites now we do have we call adjacent set aside sites for fellow veterans like for example if you have a married couple and they both are veterans they're both eligible they both can have their own sites and we'll set a a sign for the other veterans so if i was married to a veteran and we didn't want to be in the same plot then you would set aside a spot next and write that for that pers cemetery of the the alleghenies or that any any cemetery that's run by the department of veteran affairs i need to qualify that because the army has the two cemeteries we just spoke about and then there is the department of interior that has fourteen national cemeteries and then there are state cemeteries and then there is the american battle monument commission that has national cemeteries overseas so there is a different choir moncef for those cemeteries but for the cemeteries run by the department of veteran affairs which is one hundred thirty one any veteran who served on active duty and received a discharge under honorable conditions is eligible and there are a lot of  reservists and national guard they have a little different quorum and if if your reserve mr national guard and you only served on active duty for training in other words you did your six months you you're doing your two weeks a year in your way and you know you might not be eligible because that's active duty for training however a lot of our reservists and national guard today as we well know army call being called by executive order being activated and being sent over to iraq and afghanistan or serving in the saints but they're being called they would be eligible as long as that service was completed under honorable conditions and also if you're a reserve mr national guard and you're retired from that from that service you would be eligible now that's let's talk we know the veterans but we are having some interesting conversations for the program about the extension of the family members that can be interned with the veterans while we did have an interesting conversation and i'll one of the things that you were asking about bill was is there any limit to the number of family members that can be interred and my response is no there is no limit and i shared this story about the gentleman who was interred in california and had three subsequent marriages and all three of his wives and himself were interned in the same cemetery because they were all legally married but i want to point out as you explained it wasn't a divorce situation and each time this one passed away got remarried this one passed away remarried and but it wasn't like three ex wives sitting there haunting him for the rest of us then you know they were there actually and that's a good point if a marriage ends in an omen or divorce then the non veteran is no longer eligible for any benefits you know they have to has to be a legal marriage and what would a father can into being is there was a mother whose child was killed in combat and that's just a relatively recent threats couple years right correct but her or her child was killed in combat the child was not married had no children and she petition to be interred in the same site because there was no one else going in that site so the law was passed that if there is if the veteran who was killed in action have is not married has no children and their space available in that the parent can go in that site so that that is that is a law that came in  years ago ok whenever you're talking about the eligible family members all right now what would make children eligible well children are eligible and they passed before the age of twenty one or the age of twenty three of going to school full time and then we're going to penn state or the community college and they pass they would be eligible we also have a provision for adult dependent children if you have adult dependent children then the disability occurred before the age of twenty one or the age of twenty three of attending college and then that disability has to be documented by a physician ok so whenever a veterans they're trying to plan what they're doing for the future if they have a disabled child who for one reason or another has a situation no matter what the age is then who has a situation that their life expectancy is supposed to last past a certain time they can make arrangements then whenever they pass away that their child can be interned and is it interned in the same plot or a different plot or i'm trying to you know my hand grasp around that well unfortunately everything that that we do at the national cemetery is done in the time of passing there's no pre determination but what we ask and what we suggest to the family member gather all the documentation up as what happens and sometimes use in the adult dependent children will live past the parents and then once the parents are or have passed there's really no one there to pick up the torch and to make sure that the the child is taken care of so what we do is we accept documents at the national cemetery and then put that in the in the in the file so that at the time of passing there is some record so that there is something on file that then they do have and just disabled she while but as i mentioned there's no preplanning we make it very clear to the family members that the final determination is done at the time of passing and the reason we do that is because things can change the law can change the status of the individual can change so to make them pre determination wouldn't be fair to the family nor would it be abiding by the law ok and as you mentioned if  a veteran is married to a veteran they don't have to have the same plot can they if they want to oh absolutely my wife is a veteran and we can choose to have separate and a s i mentioned we try to place the veterans next to each other but what happens sometimes bill is that we are not aware that they in the second individual is a veteran hell maybe weeks afterwards so we're not always able to do that and some of what happens sometimes and it's unfortunate is that there is the assumption that if you're a female you're not a veteran especially if you're talking about some of our older couples which is very unfair and i'm always reminding my my wife that women are veterans too so and we always encourage people to ask that question to make sure they're asking the women are you a veteran and a lot of times what happened is that the women served in a lot of different capacities in world war two in korea and they did it very on assuming they did their service for their country they got out and they never mention it so nobody really while the man came when the men come home and everybody you know they march in the brains and so it's it's unfortunate that happens but we we try to make sure that we get that message out so well that's interesting because life that i you know d to understand that they still probably don't get the recognition they deserve and for the service that they completed oh well we talked earlier also last time you were on the program wh my research there were about eight hundred world war two veterans dying a day and now research i just did the other day demonstrated that figure is down to about sixteen hundred that sounds like it's great except for the fact that well we you know i don't have the exact percentage but i can tell you that there is a wide variety of veterans we have veterans from all branches of service and  all arrows there are passing and i think the vietnam era can our vietnam veterans are in their sixty's now into you know in our korean veterans or in their sixties and seventies and eighties so we're  seeing we're seeing a slowdown perhaps of our world war two veterans internment just because the numbers aren't there which is very sad because we're losing as we all know one of the greatest generations of people so  but there's not there's not any distinct percentage of whom we've been we like i say we enter the korean war veterans and then a lot of i have to make it clear that it's not all war veterans that we enter there's a lot of peacetime veterans that are eligible that are interred also so there's not any specific group and we don't and we don't segregate our cemetery by war period or branch of service you know we little over seventy nine hundred as of today that's veterans and eligible family members well as as robin was mentioning earlier that the kids back in the back room here were talking about it whenever she mentioned who was going to be on the program and it's not just veterans who watch that flag apparently the students were making comments that they in fact see that flag flying at half staff every time they go by so that flag from what i can tell basically gets placed at the half staff level early in the morning and stays there till the end of the day when we enter between twenty five to thirty veterans and family members and week because there was a soldier he was sergeant quinn who was from the pennsylvania had passed away so the governor issued a proclamation that he wanted the flags at half staff and then we've had several horrible events happening you know with the name the shipyard so we've had the flag at half staff and then today we have it has staff because of congressman foley and that will stay at half mast today even after we leave at the end of the day  confusing you know it's confusing sometimes a here even it at the school i know that not too long ago the governor said the state flags in the schools i thought that they meant all flags and they lowered the american flag with it on the stand as only a few groups that can have the power to lower the american flag right because i've been fighting for two years i've been on the school board just to get a light on our flags and finally doing that at forty years but the flag of the status of the flag i certainly don't believe that we have passed that integrity on to the students of the day to understand what it means to be in a certain place location and everything  else well i mean it's into the flag is a symbol of our nation and all the one it stands for and we take a very seriously i don't when i first arrived here there was a lot of controversy in the local area about the size of the and so i did and my new diligence and did my research and found you know there is a there is an executive order that says the flag has to be a certain size based on the height of the pole so i determine what the appropriate flag was in put that up and the dimensions are one to one point nine so one on the on the hoist which is up and down to one point nine on the fly and that's the appropriate flag that that spose to be flown and the federal installation now if you have your own house you can choose to do what you want but so that's what we have to do we have to abide by that so we have a ten by nineteen sized flag flying in our poll and that's the only other place that i know that has i think an appropriate flag is down there what use the burgundy or dodge is now plumbers and everybody looks at things and looks odd but that's actually  appropriate flak you know most of them are three by five zero four by six as you can by that's not right you know not the way it should be should be long gated as versus that of just wear it off and they said it clearly when you look  at the flag and all the meanings behind it and then look at the real regulations by most of most of the flags that we get are just commercial and they're just here you know by this one that is cheap and but that really doesn't meet we offer at the national cemetery we have three options we have in ground for casket and if you if you choose to have a casket internment going ground we provide the government line or now the family can choose to purchase a private vault and will accommodate that that's ok for a cremation internment we provide in ground or we provide above ground in our columbarium and we have a niche that's that's ten inches by twelve inches by twenty inches deep so and then will accommodate up to two urns a standard size or for the husband and wife so that's the options that we offer i mean we will open and close the gravesite moment here on the marker all right the marker is a marble marker and there's only one place it comes from i understand well there's a i mean we we we received most of our from up in in vermont but there are a couple other places in georgia but typically we we received ours from vermont and they not only cut the marker but then they put the name and everything on it well and actually that just changed recently u p until about two years ago all of our markers were cut inscribed in shipped from vermont now we receive blank had stealth remark and we have an on site and scri who actually does the inscriptions on site well that probably allows for much more control what only the marker make sure the name spelled right now everything else is that of somebody up there looking at a fuzzy fax or something trying to get that information but we're going to go ahead take a break here and do a commercial but when we come back i complete this discussion about the markers because not only are they fascinating but they in fact i'm starting to worry about my boyfriend one minute he's supportive the next minute everything is my fault he says a couple of beers get him in a good mood his idea of a couple of beers usually turns out to be a lot more than just one or two and that's when i start to worry after he's had too many peers he gets really angry and i become the target hate to say it but he reminds me too much of my last boyfriend and through any good man out there and best friend is a social worker she told me to try alan on family groups so i can understand my feelings better i didn't want to go because i didn't want to get into another argument with my boyfriend but i'm glad i went i'm starting to understand i didn't cause this anger it didn't cause his drinking it's a crate with leash to share new perspective for my problems are you troubled by someone strength in you might be surprised at what you can learn in an al anon family group meeting from people just like you call one eight for al anon and visit alan on family groups  dad wait to see the bike we got for jake hearing loss happens gradually with age making it easy to ignore yet most older americans aren't getting their hearing tested untreated hearing loss can keep your loved ones from enjoying what they cherish most that too so you don't let that happen speak up about hearing loss you'll be glad you did when you're finished with your food or beverage cartons toss it in the recycling because every card is recycled turned into useful paper products are coming back once again our guest is ron director of the national cemetery of the allegheny ron before we left we were talking about the markers ok you're playing how you get them now the family arrives at the cemetery for their service they're provided an envelope and then an amble up is information about the cemetery and also information about the headstone and we we give them a sample of what they had st look like and there's actually two types of headstones that we have there is the upright headstone the marble headstone and then there's also we call the niche cover for those that are interred in the so the families provided a sample of what it would look like and then we have an idea of what some of their wishes are through through kind communication through the funeral home so we put as much information on there as we can and then we allow the family a few days to look over the sample and then call us back and then provide the other information and when i talk about the other information i'm specifically talking about m m m belief that will be at the you can view some of the the samples there but once the family calls its back then they'll verify the information on the on the marker on the headstone in its cover and then they'll have the the option of inscription at the bottom and issues lee in terms of endearment such as will be missed you know he was a father grandfather or grandmother you know i thought a lot of why over things such as this that you know that the family space and pay a special memory to through their their loved one but there are certain things that are mandatory on the headstone that's course the name the date of birth the date of death and the branch of service everything else is optional and then there are some time from the family will want to remove a war period for example they don't want that indicated on there or they want additional information  headstone that we might not have in other words they might have just charges that that we haven't seen so they they have a chance to look through that information and to make sure that the that the headstone is correct when when it's inscribed and set well for like so for those people out there who are in similar circumstance both documents should be provided right and i mean we encourage and then as goes back to when we were talking about at the time of passing the family will go to the funeral home and provide information and we encourage the family like the veterans who had mentioned earlier and to make sure they have all their documents like in my case i was in for twenty two years i was in the army i was in the national guard i was in the marine corps so i have all kinds of just charged documents i don't like i don't even remember how many to fourteen's i have but you're right bill they have all kinds of different from ation on there might be awards i had in the army the national guard if we don't receive all those that information obviously we can't be aware of it so and all that's needed to establish eligibility is one to fourteen so in my case my last two fourteen when retired from the marine corps is all that would be needed but that wouldn't include my army time or in the any indication that i was even in the army ok one of the things that i had been made aware of recently  i belong to a car club and one of the families there she was the mother was no longer working but then the daughter got her involved in doing honor guard and i believe they do with the american legion post out bethel park if i'm not mistaken i might be on that but they assist in the honor guard because a lot of times veterans are working during the daytime whenever you're having a cemetery process is going on what what allows a person to have an honor guard is it right is it a long long jevon a what would allow them to participate in those other functions that happened during burial you know i'm glad you asked that question bill because what happens a lot of time is the family arrives at the cemetery and their expectation is when they we return to us full military honors most most of our people that are retired or especially our our young men and women who are killed in in the action they receive full military honors from their service however it's not always mandated in what's available at the time however you would mention the veteran service organizations and they are available to me but they're available to provide the full military honors and  the funeral directors are well versed on how the process works they know who to contact so when the family arrives at the funeral home they can discuss their their wishes and there's families that don't and do not want military honors you know for a lot of rain different reasons and that's their their option it's not mandated that you have it at the national cemetery but it's available so live and you go back to your question about the honor guard  the veteran service organizations in the area will will provide that in the funeral director he has a list of of organizations that will will supplement the d o d or they'll work independently and provide the honors themselves and the time he gets into the military system to the time he actually gets in turn the movie i'm getting chills just thinking about it because of the fact that it brings back a  but they're all in line with flags draped over the coffins and that is in fact the way that the entire system works i mean lies and i'm very very pleased to say that i've never seen a slip shod internment of a military member and out of all of those that i've been fortunate enough that to participate in the observer from a distance while i was on a virginia part of my time was during desert storm and i was at the at the pentagon and andrews air force base and so i had an opportunity to see a lot of internment at arlington national cemetery which to this is a very much and engrained in my brain that this is the way that not only this has been done but it should always be done you know it's a system that should be provided to every military member who serves this country and i want to thank you very much because it has certainly continued under your watch here at the national cemetery but these these service organizations i said i didn't realize that and both of these women a friend of mine and her daughter neither one of them served in the military but they were given the opportunity to participate so that's something that watchers could in fact participate in if they if they so choose to you know there's there's other offer opportunities to serve the community than just serving in the military or the local school board or whatever there's many other things and this is just another opportunity for it when we talk about the headstones though that's not necessarily goes on the headstone if we had that we were talking earlier in the program about the spouse being interned with the it's policy or child or author or whatever can be interned also and if they're interned in the same plot then on the reverse side of the of the heads that tells their story right how the system works if the non veteran passes first their information of course will be on the front and the headstone be placed at the site when the veteran passes away that headstone would be removed and would be destroyed and the new headstone would be placed with the veterans information on the front and then the non the veterans information on the back now if the veteran passes first we will take that headstone and then we will take it and have the non veterans information inscribed on the back because there is room and space available and then we'll repose ition  the headstone back on the site so this is not a necessarily one one time dealing with this plot and you're done oh no i mean you know actually you know they talk about perpetual care right well that's one of mainstays is that we are constantly maintaining the cemetery whether it's cutting the grass trimming repairing sites getting rid of the wins but whatever has to be  done headstones have to me raised and realigned to make sure they're in lima and sometimes they have to be repaired because the mower might hit them and ship them so we're constantly out walking in fact i'm mandated twice a year to do what they call a grave site assessment where i'm i and they select and they meaning my leadership will select three hundred sixty four headstones and or niche covers that back to my leadership and then when it does it gives us an overall picture of the status of the cemetery you know what areas do we need to concentrate to make improvements and it also gives my leadership a picture of how we're doing at the cemetery and them can fund me set aside do we need to have a major project at a certain cemetery because maybe the headstones are not within standards and when i say within standards i mean we have to have them in a certain height they have to be everybody always thinks that once their family members interned that's it you walk away and it's just it's just not the case and national cemetery you have programs and memorial day longer land i was hoping you'd give me some time to talk about it actually we have three major programs at the national cemetery veterans day is coming up and that'll be on the eleventh at eleven am we have a program that will last about forty five minutes and this year colonel metz car from the one seventy first he's the new commanding officer he's going to be our keynote speaker and i'm plus we're going to have a band there and we're going to have a bagpiper and some other some other activities so we're looking forward to that event and then in december fourteenth at noon we have reached the cross america which is where we have a  ceremony at the assembly area and then all of our visitors are free to go to the the section of their choice and then place a wreath last year we had over five thousand reese donated to the cemetery and we're hoping probably this year will be as much it was it was probably the most well attended ceremony we've ever had we probably had depending on what news the news paper you wanted to believe we have between fifteen hundred  thousand people at the cemetery so we was it was well attended obviously for a minute when they say you had donated reese where do they come from well there is an organization that's called recent cross america and they have a then you can select the cemetery that they're going to the nil nil be shipped to us the tractor trailer a few days before the ceremony and then we have volunteers that on load him will play some of the different  sections and then our visitors will we'll get to place them on the day of the ceremony and there are other ceremony is memorial day which is held the sunday prior to morial day and eleven am and then follows the same program is veterans day basically with the guest speaker in music can and again that's that's well attended and we encourage everybody to come out the memorial day weekend i said i've had the opportunity and i really do consider an honor to in fact place flag at the local cemetery here when i have a seventh day and what most people don't understand unless you actually go on the memorial day and look at that sea of flags they don't understand how many veterans in fact some are from western pennsylvania after desert storm the city of pittsburgh was amazed the parade that took place because it was thirty some thousand military that came out of the woodwork no one knew where they came from and you mention the one seventy first i was with that organization at the time and we were in fact involved in the management of the parade getting it all together and getting it started everything else and even dumbfounded members of us who were in the military because of the fact we never realized the concentration because literally the people that were participating in the parade it was only a small portion of those that are actually in the military here in the coast guard in that and the navy reserve in the army reserve in the military bases of nine eleventh's as well as one seventy first used to be the one twel also the fighter group out there but it was it was one of those things that when we looked that it sort of brought it to home but whatever you stand and you see the flags flying at quite a heaven cemetery and i'm sure many of the other cemeteries it's an awesome sight and it really does bring it home that thank goodness as we talked about the people west western pennsylvania have supported their country and every aspect whenever comes to national service so well one of the things that we have at the cemetery is we have the avenue of flags and and this year we're hoping to have one hundred fly avenue flags up and these are the flags that were donated from the loved ones who have lost their veteran and they can donate their flag to the cemetery and then we will take that and fly it in the the avenue of flags you bring up a good point here in the documentation it says that if you're presented a flag and it gets lost or burned and that the national organization will not replace it ok but if it is a divorce situation and the husband and the ex wife are x x pal so their side their son or their younger member i guess gets gets killed in the line of duty or any time  the national cemetery will then present each side of the family with the flag well how the process works in the rule is one veteran one flag however there are cases where veterans service organizations and even the military will step forward and make accommodations but the law is if you go to the u s post office or a regional office  put back by that i figured you probably had some warehouse somewhere that had eight hundred flags in it at any given time but well you most most cases when when the death occurs when the funeral director is instrumental in organizing and obtaining a lot of different documents and and in items in one of those is the flag i mean they'll they'll help the family in complete the forms and obtain the fl they'll arrange for military honors up with the scheduling so you know i mentioned earlier about pre planning we're talking about a little bit bill one of the things that that that i think we need to mention even though the national cemetery we can do the pre planning but the funeral homes can so if if you're aware of you know what funeral home you may or may use it would be a good idea to go down to visit them talk to them provide your documents to them so it just takes a little bit of anxiety out of the process when somebody passes away i think we've all lost a loved one you know i've lost my parents my younger brother and it's a very traumatic time when you lose somebody you love and not always are you thinking correctly and a lot of times you you you remember things after the fact if you do a little pre planning upfront and you know make the arrangements get the documents in place  it just takes a little less a little stress off the family and and it helps the funeral home do their job also well after our last discussion three years ago that's what exactly what i did i went in and put a novelist to gather with all my documentation just because the fact that you know we don't know who's going to be around when zach and all my my kids and everything know where this all the love is not that they i'm hoping that they don't want to deal with it soon but the bottom line is if in that circumstance ever does come out that they'll know that they don't have to sit there and try to root through everything to find out what's going on we have just a few minutes left i want to give you the opportunity to bring up anything you like well again i just i appreciate the opportunity of being here and one of the things that i have to mention is the wonderful volunteer and support group that we have at the national cemetery you know i had mentioned a recent cross american and that's coming up here in in december we usually have a wonderful turnout and i think one of the things that i enjoy seeing all the young folks that come out with the parents and the grandparents and they're providing the opportunity to walk the cemetery and to kind of you know learn what what it is to be a veteran and what the veterans have done so it's always refreshing to see that one is that that's on december fourteenth december fourteenth at noon well ron here pretty soon but the bottom line is we really do appreciate having you discuss this topic this is something that many people around here don't understand how many vets are involved so that the health thank you very much for coming and look forward to