KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A cool, gray early October day at the Leavenworth Veteran’s Cemetery didn’t deter personnel from paying final respects to a veteran most had never known.
For the past two years, Christine Seal became good friends with U.S. Army veteran Tommie Lee Stevens.
As a nurse, Seal eventually became a caretaker for Stevens, who had no family.
When Stevens recently died, Seal knew he deserved a proper final farewell, so she helped spread the word through the military community that a veteran might be laid to rest without any family.
The military community stepped up Friday with personnel from the U.S. Army Command General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, the Patriot Guard, VFW Riders and a handful of civilians, including Seal, on hand to bid farewell.
“I told him I’d be with him until the very end, and this is the very end,” Seal said.
Fellow veteran Ron Wurtle said those who serve are part of a brotherhood.
“That’s why we’re here,” Wurtle said. “This guy is a brother just like all the rest of our fellow veterans.”
There are those who see the life and death of Stevens as another in a long line.
“He’s part of that unbroken chain of events that goes all the way from Gen. George Washington to our current day,” Maj. Michael Gilbertson said. “He’s part of our formation whether we knew him personally or not.”
