Mass funeral for forgotten NYC servicemen

Twenty servicemen from New York City whose bodies have gone unclaimed for months or longer will receive full military honors at national veterans cemetery service.

The funeral service Mass will be held Saturday at Calverton National Cemetery on Long Island. The Department of Veterans Affairs says it’s the largest of it kind in U.S. history.

It’s part of a national initiative in recent years to clear a massive backlog of unburied or unclaimed remains of both veterans and nonveterans.

The effort is backed by the Missing in America Project, which has been organizing funerals for forgotten veterans since 2006. Founder Fred Salanti of Redding, Calif., says millions of unclaimed bodies or cremated remains, many of them veterans, may be in morgues and funeral homes across the country.