Sierra Vista Herald/Review,  Published Saturday, May 16, 2009

By Bill Hess

TUCSON – Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas says it is time the few remains of soldiers from the 1860s through the 1880s  who died in the then Arizona Territory be given a final resting place.

“They need land where they will have final peace,” the bishop of the Diocese of Tucson said Friday morning.

Prior to blessing the remains of 57 soldiers, three children and an Army civilian employee at All Faiths Cemetery in Tucson, the bishop said, “All of us want our lives to be remembered and respected.”

In the case of the remains, which were placed in small wooden caskets constructed by Palominas resident Joe Smith, they have been moved a few times.

Some of the remains may have even been separated, with some being moved to California while parts remained in Tucson.

“These bodies will find their eternal rest,” Kicanas said.

The remains of the soldiers who protected the Arizona Territory in the 1800s have been forgotten for more than a century.

Years ago, their graves were paved over as roads were built in downtown Tucson. But as preparations were made for a new Pima County and city of Tucson court complex, the remains were rediscovered.

In a legal archaeological process, the remains of the 61 people, along with more than 1,700 other remains, were processed for removal and relocation.

The Arizona Department of Veterans Services, through the state-operated Southern Arizona Veterans Memorial Cemetery’s administrator Joe Larson, then started the process of having the soldiers placed among the honored dead of all branches of the services that served after them.

Before the bishop gave the final blessing for the journey from Tucson to Sierra Vista on Friday, motorcyclists representing many veterans organizations carefully placed 35-star flags on each small coffin. The national banners were from the era the remains of soldiers fought under in the 1800s. The remains included cavalrymen, infantrymen, cooks, farriers, musicians and others who were stationed in the territory from the Civil War through some of the Indian Wars.

Kicanas led the people at the Tucson cemetery in singing the first verse of “Amazing Grace.”

“We pray for their souls, for those who gave their lives for the protection of our country,” the bishop said.

Blessing each casket with holy water, Kicanas told each of those whose souls were represented in the caskets to “sleep in everlasting peace.”

Then he asked the riders to form a semi-circle in an area between the rows of the caskets and blessed each of them asking God to grant them a safe drive from Tucson to Sierra Vista as they escorted the remains.

Each casket was then carried by two of the riders and placed on one of two government vehicles as a pair of soldiers from Fort Huachuca’s 11th Signal Brigade saluted each coffin as it went between them.

The trip from All Faiths Cemetery to the Southern Arizona Veterans Memorial Cemetery on Buffalo Soldier Trail took slightly more than two hours.

Upon arrival, Fort Huachuca Chaplain (Col.) Thomas Day said a prayer as the remains were received in Sierra Vista.

Soldiers and airmen from the fort then removed and ceremonially folded two large 50-star American flags that covered the caskets in the trucks.

The caskets were then removed and placed in an area where they would remain overnight waiting for today’s 10 a.m. reburial ceremony in Sierra Vista.

The Victorian-era style cemetery-within-a-cemetery that will be the final resting place was nearby. Each grave will be marked with a marble headstone in the style of the 1880s.

There will be no names on the markers, even though records indicated the possibility of names for some of those in the Tucson graves. Each tombstone will be marked unknown because of the lack of DNA required by the federal government to confirm the identification of a set of remains.

Kicanas said the short farewell ceremony in Tucson and the one today in Sierra Vista are meant to give those who served so many years ago in Arizona the recognition they deserve.

As birds sang in the growing heat of the Tucson cemetery, the bishop again addressed the remains in the caskets, saying where they were going in Sierra Vista.

“May this new resting place be a your final eternal resting place,” he said.