After scarfing down breakfast, I hustled outside into pre-dawn darkness with five other incarcerated military veterans. We cleared metal detectors, endured a pat-down and made a long walk past death row to a building in the far corner of Union Correctional Institution’s compound in northeast Florida.
Three times a month, I wake up at 4:30 a.m. to make this journey so I can craft wooden burial urns for veterans whose remains have gone unclaimed. On this day, our carpentry team was made up of two soldiers, three sailors and a Marine.
Once we entered our workplace, the R.O.C.K. Hounds training facility — where castaway K-9’s are rehabbed by inmates — the mood flipped from tired and groggy to upbeat as we greeted the dogs.
After getting some pets in, we set up tables and broke out supplies. Upbeat classic rock played in the background.
We each started on our designated job.
Monte, a paratrooper and master builder, began by laying out the pre-milled pieces of pine and oak. Once all the parts are glued together, they have to dry for a full 24 hours.
The next phases were sanding and staining. Mike and Grover handled sanding. Mike, a former Army tank mechanic who was stationed in Korea for two years, was intensely focused. Grover is a former Marine who fought in Vietnam. By the time they finished sanding, their clothes looked like powdered doughnuts.
I worked on assembly and finishing. An Army vet named Bobby helped me out. He completed a finishing touch, “felting” the inside of each urn so it is smooth like the top of a new pool table. After that, each lid was fitted.
John, whom I call “Shipmate” — we served on a ship together — carefully hand-painted military emblems on the front of each urn.
Each urn was finished with a coat of clear-gloss polyurethane, then adorned with an engraved brass plaque that read: “Made by U.C.I. Veterans Program Raiford, FL. Rest In Peace.” When we stepped back to admire the finished product, the smell of fresh lacquer was still strong.
It takes us weeks to complete a batch of urns. After we finish our work, the urns are shipped to Veterans Affairs hospitals and funeral homes, where the remains of fallen veterans are temporarily stored, awaiting a final home. To date, we have built over 200 urns for people, mostly indigent and homeless veterans, who now have something better than a cardboard box to rest in.
