PUEBLO — A Pueblo veteran will be disinterred in Colorado on Thursday and will be reinterred next month at Pikes Peak National Cemetery.
Alvin Pugh passed away in 2022, but his family was never notified by Veteran Affairs (VA). His sister, Patti Pugh, told News5 Alvin will arrive at Denver International Airport (DIA) on Thursday.
He will be picked up by Mountain Memorial Funeral and will remain there until August 15.
Background Information
Alvin had moved to New York and kept in touch with his siblings, Patti and Kennedy. Patti said in January 2022, she stopped hearing from Alvin.
A couple of months ago, Patti and Kennedy learned their brother had died while Patti was searching for answers online.
"I decided, oh, I've got a little bit of time, you know, so let me do one of my Alvin searches... So I thought, well, I'll start with Google because I was done paying for those subscriptions. And first thing that popped up was 'Find a Grave.' And I was like, well, that's different," Patti told News5's Alasyn Zimmerman during an interview earlier this year.
The grave listed Alvin's date of death as February 21, 2023. Alvin was buried at Calverton National Cemetery in New York.
The VA sent News5 a statement, which says in part, if a veteran does not die in a VA facility, the VA, "Generally relies upon the reporting municipalities and professionals to contact veteran's next of kin."
VA fails to tell Pueblo family their brother passed away
The VA did admit it had contact information for Alvin's family in a separate records system, and they apologized for not identifying that before his burial. They tell us they are taking steps to prevent this from happening in the future.
The siblings later learned through the Medical Examiner's Office in New York that Alvin died in 2022 from a bilateral pulmonary embolism. They believe his body was in a morgue for a year.
While searching for answers in Alvin's death, the siblings learned of an Inspector General report detailing an ongoing issue with the VA not notifying families their loved ones had past.
Investigations show ongoing issue with VA not notifying families
Another report released around the time the siblings learned of Alvin's passing showed the Military Medical Examiner had a pattern of not notifying families that organs had been retained.
"It made me it made me pause because I realized that... this was just not an isolated situation, that this was with my family, that this was probably bigger and could affect a lot of other families," Kennedy told News5's Alasyn Zimmerman earlier this year.
In other cases, it did not follow the deceased of family's wishes on what to do with their remains.
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