Hometown Hero
45 minutes to Natchez: The Final Ride of Two Forgotten Soldiers
Wednesday afternoon two former and forgotten soldiers were laid to rest at the Natchez Military Cemetery. They are Richard Lee Wetterling, former US Navy, and Jack K. Waters, former US Army.
Mamie Brown from the Hinds County Veterans Office discovered that both men were honorably discharged and that their families had not claimed their bodies. Determined to give them a proper military burial, she ensured they wouldn’t end up in a pauper’s grave in Jackson.
Dr. Robert Jackson, a Deputy with the Warren County Sheriff’s Office was one of the first people contacted by Larry Chisley. Larry Chisley is the owner and operator of Dillon/Chisley Funeral Home, here in Vicksburg. Chisley had heard about the two forgotten soldiers and took it upon himself, at his expense, to provide them with caskets. Chisley also offered up his hearses to carry their bodies to the Natchez National Cemetery. Leading the procession for the hour and a half ride would be the Patriot Guard Riders.
The Patriot Guard Riders
You may remember that name, the Patriot Guard Riders. They are the motorcyclists who finally and effectively countered the members of the Westboro Baptist Church when they came to Mississippi to protest at a funeral for a slain soldier. Westboro, through some convoluted interpretation of scripture, believes that God is killing US soldiers as a punishment for the USA having homosexuals.
Imagine if you will, the Westboro Baptist Church standing outside the funeral of your son or daughter who died in service of their country and them telling your family God killed your child to punish America. Hate-based Christianity is nothing new and thrives in political circles today, but going after dead soldiers and their families was too much for the group that would evolve into the Patriot Guard Riders. They decided that Westboro was not going to do that on their watch.
They formed a group, headed to the funeral, and revved their engines in unison to drown out the church’s hateful chants. With no one to hear their rhetoric, Westboro went away, allowing the family to lay their soldier to rest. The Riders successfully repeated this strategy at a few more events and Westboro has since retreated back into their safe place.
Those same Patriot Guard Riders led the procession for these two unclaimed soldiers.
The Procession
The procession was led by Warren County Sheriff’s Deputies, including Sheriff Martin Pace. Both lanes were blocked for the Patriot Guard Riders. In their protection were the two hearses containing the forgotten soldiers, trailed by a single marked unit straddling both lanes. Behind them was the Vicksburg Daily News with, sometimes, one or two marked units behind us.
People in our community are very respectful of a funeral procession. While we traveled from Dillon/Chisley to 61 South, both lanes of traffic stopped. Warren County Sheriff’s Deputies raced from intersection to intersection to stop traffic. At each intersection, those Deputies got out of their vehicle to give a proper military salute every time the hearses passed by. A powerful site to see.
The reverence continued as we got on 61 South, southbound, with drivers in the northbound lane also pulling over as the funeral procession gradually picked up speed and headed to Natchez. The two forgotten soldiers, Richard Wetterling and Jack Waters, were well respected on their final ride through Vicksburg.
About 45 minutes to Natchez
South of Vicksburg, a single vehicle, driven by a young girl who was maybe 20 years old, attempted to pass on the left. The young lady had been behind us since Warrenton Road and seemed antsy to get by. She respectfully pulled past me, the two hearses, and was gaining on the Patriot Guard Riders when one of the officers near the front of the procession pulled into the left lane to block her. I prepared my meanest look for her as she did the drive of shame to ease her way behind the procession. When she got near enough for me to cast my look of disgust I saw her full palm, fingers spread wide, and she was very clearly saying, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
This all happened about 45 minutes before we got to Natchez. It was then I realized that to her, I was the family of the two deceased soldiers. She meant no disrespect, it may have been the first time she was in that situation. When she realized her error she immediately tried to make amends. Someone did a good job of helping to raise her, she learned quickly and apologized.
Their Family
At the moment, the overwhelming thought was that those two soldiers in the hearse, Jack and Richard, were there without their family. An errant stranger had just clarified that. To her at least, the lone civilian vehicle in the procession, I was their family. That thought dominated for the rest of the drive. At the ceremony, Sheriff Pace, as he gave the two soldiers their final respects, said the same thing. Addressing the Patriot Guard and assembled guests, including U.S. Navy sailors, Pace said, “Regardless of if their blood family is here or not, I heard an officer say a minute ago, their family is here. All you guys are family, Army and Navy. So they do have their family with them.”
Two old soldiers with no blood relatives present were laid to rest. They were given a respectful funeral and military honors by a family they never met.
