This week, 25 U.S. military veterans and two spouses of veterans were laid to rest at long last thanks to the efforts of the Missing in America Project (MIAP), the local Callahan-Edfast Mortuary and Crematory and our state representatives.

These veterans, who had served in World War I, World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War, were part of a nationwide project by MIAP to locate, identify and inter the unclaimed cremated remains of American veterans, according to reporting by The Daily Sentinel’s Nathan Deal.

In its 15 years, the organization has visited 2,552 funeral homes, inventoried more than 30,000 unclaimed cremains and determined that more than 6,000 of those cremains were veterans. Of those, 5,600 have been interred, with more than 400 being returned to families.

“Every veteran signed a blank check up to and including their life,” said Clyde Taylor, national vice president of the project. “One thing every one of us was promised was a dignified, honorable military burial. Sitting on a shelf, they are not receiving it. All we’re doing is fulfilling that obligation. It’s the right thing to do.”

We couldn’t agree more. The fact that we are still identifying cremains of veterans who served in WWI, which ended more than a century ago, shows how necessary this project is. As Americans we should not accept, nor rest until we’ve given all our veterans from all American wars the dignified burial they deserve.

We are also happy to see our local representatives took active steps to ensure that is possible in the state of Colorado.

In the summer of 2019, state Rep. Janice Rich met MIAP Colorado state coordinator Mike Shults, when she learned about the project. Shults identified a need for legislative action in the state.

That idea became House Bill 20-1051, a bill that Rich and Rep. Ray Scott sponsored. Both the House and Senate unanimously approved the bill just before the COVID-19 pandemic ended the 2020 session.

The bill permits a veterans remains recovery organization to determine if unclaimed cremated remains are of United States military veterans and qualified family members, and further requires that a facility in possession of the cremains transfer those remains of veterans to a national veterans cemetery for final interment, according to Rich.

We should be proud of the work of our local legislatures on this issue. They deserve our thanks for ensuring this process of identifying and burying our veterans can continue smoothly and respectfully here in Colorado. Excellent work Rep. Rich and Rep. Scott.

We’re also left feeling like more could be done here locally to recognize the importance of our veterans to this community. We of course have the Veterans Memorial Cemetery of Western Colorado here in Grand Junction, which is a beautiful final resting place, but a more prominent monument to our veterans in town would be appropriate, befitting the sacrifice our veterans, alive and fallen, have made for this country.

It would be a way to recognize and honor the veterans we’ve laid to rest, the ones we’re still searching for and the ones we may never locate.

In the meantime we’re glad to know the vital work of the Missing in America Project will continue and we hope legislators in other states can look to our representatives as an example and make this process easier in whatever way they can across the country.

Grand Junction Daily Sentinel editorial board