The man who built this backyard of veteran headstones called in to a local radio show to announce that he was removing all of the grave markers. The radio did not identify the homeowner.

“I was just making something out of nothing,” he said. “Ninety percent of them are broken. They were never in a cemetery. They went from the monument to the landfill. There were mistakes. I didn’t know.”

The stones were made at a former monument company, which dissolved in 2005. Leftover and defective headstones made by the business were supposed to be destroyed, but instead the company dumped them all in a ravine. It was there that they were discovered by a local and later converted into a patio.

The homeowner expressed remorse. “I am not blaming anybody but me. I took them out of the landfill,” he said.

Ed Harkreader, the Navy veteran who originally publicized the issue, reported on his Facebook page that the homeowner is the son of a veteran and mentally disabled. It is likely, he wrote, that the property owner did not realize the significance of his actions. Harkreader asked anyone initially enraged by this controversy not seek out or harm the property owner.

To put this situation right, Harkreader and other veterans founded Operation Hall of Heroes to remove the markers and save the man’s patio with donated stone.

Operation Hall of Heroes will be a privately funded effort to recover these stones and get them to the state capitol that each veteran is from, provided the markers are accurate. The spirit is to have these inside in memoriam as a Hall of Heroes in your capitol building. But, there is a BIG catch.

The property owner will lose their steps and patio, leaving the area prone to erosion and weather damage…all because they saved some stones. This isn’t fair to the property owner.

Join the Facebook group to contribute to Operation Hall of Heroes.