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Gail Force Reaches Tuscola Cemeteries Leaving Lasting Impression (Video)
Chelsea Dickens
Tue, 05 Jun 2018 15:27:52 EDT
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Gail Lesoski has been an advocate for veterans for ages, but just recently she has take it upon herself, with the help of others to serve those vets in the most unlikely of ways, ensuring that all those who have passed receive their honorary flag and flag holder wherever their final resting play may be.
One of those honors or rights veterans have is having a flag and flag holder at their site. Act 63, established in 1915 in Michigan, states the municipals and all other forms of local governments should provide an acceptable flag and flag holder to denote the presence of a veterans in the armed forces. If these townships or municipalities do not provide these items it is a civil infraction.
"Some of the cemeteries," Gail explained. "Have been giving me wonderful feedback about the fact that this is what they needed to be doing for a long time."
A movement has formed, many townships are now keeping computer records of notations for veterans. Gail herself has been referencing her research findings with Tuscola Veteran Affairs to check for accuracy. Many people have joined forces to give vets the honors they should have had coming to them.
"We ended up with huge differences from what they had previously thought they had. One cemetery went from thirty-two veteran burials to 127 veteran burials" Lesoski said.
Lesoski has been working with a group of almost forty people since this past fall and into the winter sorting the names of veterans into their respective burial sights throughout the county. The process of paying respect to vets started long before that though.
Asking Gail where her passion started, she answered that it started with marrying someone who served in the Vietnam War. From there her husband had passed of Agent Orange and she wanted to assure his burial would be marked with an honorary flag. Twenty years later she has been helping Veterans know their rights and privledges, living or not.
"It's a matter of honoring that veteran wherever the remains happen to o to," Lesoski added.
Veterans' families are also able to recieve repairs for headstones that are damages or disheveled looking, free of charge from the federal government. It is a matter of knowing rights, and knowing how to pay the least amount of honor to those who paid the ultimate price.
A video of an interview with Gail may be viewed as part of this article.