A World War II veteran had no one left to bury him. Then 1,500 strangers showed up.
John Bernard Arnold III experienced loss before he knew much else. His mother died when he was young and he grew up in foster care before serving in World War II in the Navy.
His great love in life made people laugh; he was a passionate magician who never married or had children. When he died on May 6, there was no one left to bury him.
That is, until Terrance O’Keefe of Hanover-Hanson Veteran Services put out a call to give Arnold a proper farewell. “We had planned for the entire state to at least show up,” he said.
The community kept its promises.
“I got there about an hour early and there were already about 100 people there,” Erin O’Malley Mandeville said.
She ran because her husband served 26 years in the Navy. “Everyone deserves respect at Remembrance. Especially our veterans,” she said.
At Arnold’s service, four veterans simultaneously saluted his casket. The priest also gave the crowd insight into who John Bernard Arnold III was as a man, including his love of classical music, chocolate cake and “Grey’s Anatomy.”
“When the priest said that, everyone in the church just laughed a little bit because he was a little off target, but it just made me feel like I knew him,” O’Malley Mandeville said.
Arnold planned his funeral more than a decade ago and his instructions were clear: a Catholic mass, no eulogy. He just wanted people to know that he believed and that he served.
When O’Malley Mandeville approached Arnold’s casket, she became emotional.
“I had tears in my eyes when I saw him, and he had his Navy hat right next to him, which I was told he wore proudly every day,” she said. “And I just said quietly, ‘I hope wherever you are, you can see this. Because it’s beautiful.'”
At the cemetery, Arnold was sent under a cloudless sky with bagpipes and a salvo of artillery. The flag from his casket was given to the man who ran the veterans home where Arnold spent his final years.
And yet another twist: The story spread and Arnold’s great-nephew, Joe Durban, recognized his name and flew to Massachusetts to receive Arnold’s flag and visit the grave of a family member.
Arnold may not have wanted a eulogy, but he got 1,500 souls instead.
