{"id":317353,"date":"2020-02-12T06:00:01","date_gmt":"2020-02-11T20:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=317353"},"modified":"2020-02-12T06:00:01","modified_gmt":"2020-02-11T20:00:01","slug":"unclaimed-veteran-given-final-salute","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/unclaimed-veteran-given-final-salute\/","title":{"rendered":"Unclaimed veteran given final salute"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_317354\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-317354\" style=\"width: 2110px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Veterans-pix1.jpg\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-317354\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Honor guards bring casket of the late Army veteran Robert McCausland to his final resting place at the Veterans Cemetery in Marpi last Feb. 11. (Contributed Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The American Red Cross-NMI Chapter, along with the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the Veteran Affairs Office, had a special burial known as the \u201cFinal Salute\u201d for an unclaimed veteran at the Veterans Cemetery in Marpi last Feb. 11.<\/p>\n<p>The late Robert McCausland passed away on Sept. 28, 2018, and his body spent the next 18 months at the morgue of the Commonwealth Health Center until yesterday.<\/p>\n<p>One of McCausland\u2019s friend, Dave Blake, remembers him as someone who loved his privacy, enjoyed debating with close friends, and a very loving, caring person.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe didn\u2019t want to be around many people and he enjoyed arguing, but he was good,\u201d said Blake.<\/p>\n<p>Another close friend who is an Air Force veteran remembers that McCausland used to talk a lot about his son who played football. He remembers McCausland as an accountant at the Bobby Cadillacs restaurant for a few years.<\/p>\n<p>He said some of those who knew McCausland were able to pay their respects yesterday.<\/p>\n<p>Blake stated that this was a complex situation since McCausland passed away without a will, instructions, and no court documents, highlighting the need for everyone to be prepared and write a will and instructions on what to do after you\u2019ve passed away because you\u2019ll never know when it\u2019s your time.<\/p>\n<p>VAO executive officer Stanley Iakopo, who was also at the funeral, said, \u201cOn behalf of the governor and lieutenant governor, I would like to extend their deep sympathies and condolences to the family and friends of the late veteran, Robert McCausland.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Along with his staff, Iakopo also lauded the American Red Cross-NMI Chapter, Veterans of Foreign Wars, and Borja Funeral Homes for making the funeral arrangements.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The American Red Cross-NMI Chapter, along with the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the Veteran&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":309809,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-317353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317353\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/309809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}