Homeless Veterans Essay

Students at the University of Detroit Jesuit High School have started a new kind of public service. More than 50 young men from the all-boys school volunteer as pallbearers at funerals for homeless veterans, according to the Associated Press.

If the family of a homeless veteran cannot be located within 90 days of their death, then the Dignity Memorial Network's Homeless Veterans Program provides them with a casket, funeral home director John Desmond told TODAY. But, because the veterans don't have family present, they don't receive pallbearers to help bury them. Now, students from the high school will help give the veterans a proper burial, which is exactly what Desmond said the veterans program seeks to do.

"The students' service is quite simply valuable to

"I know that these people had loved ones and, whether or not these loved ones could be there to say goodbye, it does not change the fact that everyone deserves a proper burial," Benedetto told TODAY. "During the funerals, while listening to the eulogies, I heard a particular statement that I feel was very important. 'While you didn't know him by name or sight, we are all here today to recognize his service to our country.'"

Faculty member Todd Wilson, who leads the program, told TODAY that service doesn't end with the living:

"[The students] believe that, through being a pallbearer at the funerals of veterans, the homeless, the socially poor and others, they are ... offering a final tribute to a person's life journey," Wilson said. "I have seen our students reach out of themselves and truly give selflessly to others. The students have come to understand that it is not our place to judge someone and their circumstances in life, but rather to celebrate and respect the dignity of that person's