BUCKHANNON – Members of the Buckhannon American Legion recently went above and beyond the call of duty to honor a veteran who had a special request when he passed away.     

Ed Smith, Commander of the Buckhannon Post 7 Honor Guard, said he recently received a call from the daughter of a veteran who passed away in Buckhannon. The daughter told Smith her father requested that he be buried with his wife in Elizabeth, West Virginia, but that she was having difficulty finding someone in that area to perform a military funeral.     

“The daughter called me and told me that her dad had passed away, and he wished to be buried with his wife in Elizabeth,” Smith said. “She said she was having trouble finding someone to do a military funeral for him, so I called the Ripley Post and the Post in Parkersburg and couldn’t seem to get anywhere. I eventually received a call back from one of them and was told they couldn’t do a military funeral without three days’ notice. As you can imagine, the family was disappointed.”   

Smith said he decided to talk it over with some of the members of the Buckhannon American Legion to see what they could do to help out. With Elizabeth being 95 miles away from Buckhannon, he wasn’t sure what to expect.   

“I was going to try to get at least six of our guys to go with me and do a military funeral for this gentleman,” Smith said. “I ended up having 10 of our guys volunteer to go do it. So, we traveled to Elizabeth and did the service for the family, and the daughter was happy that we made the trip to honor her father. I just don’t understand how one of the posts down in that area couldn’t find the time to do a funeral for this veteran. We drove close to 200 miles round-trip to do it.”  

Elizabeth is located in Wirt County and is situated along the Little Kanawha River. Smith said it is nothing new for the Buckhannon American Legion members to travel to perform a military funeral.   

“We go out of the county all the time. We’ve done funerals in Upshur, Lewis, Harrison, Barbour and Randolph counties,” Smith said. “We have funerals all around the area and I don’t know of us ever turning anyone down. We have had days where we have had two funerals in one day and there was no way we could make both of them. In those cases, we reach out to other American Legions and ask for help. But if the timing is right, we are willing and can do two in one day.”       

Smith said that he can’t think of anywhere in the state that he and members of the Buckhannon American Legion wouldn’t go to perform a military funeral. He said leaving the state of West Virginia would be pushing it, however.   

“We’ve never done any out of state and that would probably be asking a little bit much,” Smith said. “The one we did in Elizabeth pretty much took us the entire day, but we were happy to do it. We try our best to be available whenever we are called.”   

The Buckhannon American Legion performed 29 military funerals in 2025 and have already done 25 this year. Smith said that a military funeral includes a final salute at the funeral home, and is preceded by a reading at the cemetery, the presentation of a bible to the next of kin, the folding and presentation of the American flag to the next of kin, and the playing of taps.