The remains of four Connecticut veterans, including two from Fairfield County, received a long overdue honor Friday. They were laid to rest at the State Veterans Cemetery in Middletown. The full military funeral was hosted by the Connecticut State Department of Veterans Affair in partnership with the Connecticut Funeral Directors Association. 

“While these veterans passed without family or friends to provide them with final honors, they are no longer forgotten because you are here,” DVA Commissioner Thomas Saadi said during the public ceremony. “We are all here together to remember them and to provide them with the military honors that they earned in service to our nation.”

PFC Robert Benson served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1951-1953 and died in New Haven in 2008. CPL Loren Milton Cubbison, Jr., served in the U.S. Army from 1953-1955 and died in New Haven in 2021. CPT David L. Groher served in the U.S. Army from 1943-1946 and died in Bridgeport in 2008. PO3 Morris Meyer served in the U.S. Navy from 1944-1946 and died in Bridgeport in 2004. 

Their cremated remains sat on funeral home shelves for years until now.

“It exemplifies and epitomizes the sacred ethos of our military — leave no one behind,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal at the ceremony. “These brave men might well have been forgotten, invisible to Connecticut but for our determination to say, ‘We will not leave them behind.’”

The Connecticut National Guard took part in the honors, along with the Connecticut Patriot Guard Riders who carried the veterans cremated remains to the columbarium, finally laying them to rest after all these years. Meyer’s civilian wife, Cornelia Meyer, who died before him, was laid to rest with her husband. 

This was the eighth such ceremony held by the DVA since 2009 when it joined with the CFDA to identify unclaimed cremated remains of honorably discharged veterans in the state’s funeral homes with the goal of providing them military honors and dignified burial.