Explanation of marker shift at Punchbowl satisfies widow

The Florida woman whose husband’s memorial marker at Punchbowl cemetery was moved without her knowledge finally has an explanation that she believes is accurate.

It took the cemetery three tries to get it right.

Along the way, a congressional committee weighed in and a high-level Department of Veterans Affairs official launched an investigation to learn what happened at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

Last week Bradley Phillips, who oversees all national cemeteries in the West, called Kari Cowan with his findings. She said she is satisfied the latest version is correct, helping put an end to a controversy that prompted the chairman of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs to insist the department apologize to Cowan and other affected families.

For a second time, Phillips apologized last week to Cowan, who said she was rudely treated by Punchbowl staff a year ago when she insisted her husband’s marker had been relocated and they repeatedly told her she was mistaken.

As it turned out, Cowan was correct and the cemetery staff was wrong, but Punchbowl records don’t indicate when her husband’s marker was moved or why, according to Phillips.

In an interview with the Star-Advertiser, Phillips stressed that an audit of all Punchbowl grave and memorial marker sites — the latter contain no remains — showed that all were where they were supposed to be. A second audit of about 400 graves randomly selected similarly uncovered no problems, Phillips said.

But Punchbowl documents don’t indicate when or why the Cowan marker and about 95 other memorial markers in rows 9, 10 and possibly 11 in Section MB were shifted to the right, according to Phillips.

Most of the 95 markers were shifted only several feet, but two at the end of row 9, including Cowan’s, and two at the end of row 10 were moved to the beginning of the next row, a distance of about 100 feet, he said.

Punchbowl policy requires families to be notified whenever grave or memorial marker sites are moved.

During a visit to Punchbowl with her teenage son in December 2011, Cowan said she was horrified to find someone else’s marker in the spot where her husband’s originally had been placed. Because that section does not contain remains, the staff seemed dismissive of her concerns, she said.

Aaron Cowan, an Army chief warrant officer 3, died in 2005 at age 37 from injuries suffered in a helicopter crash in South Korea. He was cremated, and his ashes were scattered at sea off Pearl Harbor.

His Clearwater, Fla., widow chose to have her husband’s memorial marker placed at Punchbowl. The MB section is reserved for veterans whose remains were never recovered or were buried at sea, donated to science or cremated and scattered.

Phillips emphasized that Punchbowl never lost track of where the Cowan marker and all the others in the section were located. But the 95 apparently were moved sometime between September 2008 — Cowan provided satellite photos from that period to Phillips — and her 2011 visit, and the staff couldn’t find records explaining the move, he said.

He said he understands why such a records gap might be a concern to people with loved ones buried at Punchbowl.

"We could have done better," Phillips said.

But the audit findings confirmed that all the grave sites are in order, he added. About 34,000 veterans and others are buried there.

The audit was among the more than 100 ordered nationally after disclosures that scores of graves at other cemeteries were incorrectly marked or unmarked, in some cases for years.

Punchbowl is one of Hawaii’s most visited and revered sites and was in the national spotlight Sunday for a memorial service for U.S. Sen. Daniel Ino­uye, who died Dec. 17 at age 88 from respiratory complications. President Obama and other dignitaries were among the roughly 1,000 people in attendance.

Phillips’ most recent explanation of the MB realignment differed from what he told the Star-Advertiser in July — essentially the second version of events. (The first was the cemetery staff’s insistence that the Cowan marker had not been moved.)

Based on information he had at the time, Phillips explained that all the MB markers, including Cowan’s, had been shifted in 2006 to smaller plots within the section to make room for additional markers in the future.

But relying on the 2008 satellite photos and her 2011 visit, Cowan disputed even that version, and Phillips, whom Cowan lauded for treating her with "the utmost respect" throughout the investigation, promised to do more checking.

"He really took it very personally," Cowan said in a phone interview Monday. "He became very committed to get to the truth."

Phillips also was instrumental in the department removing her husband’s Punchbowl marker and, at no cost to the family, erecting a new one at Fort Bayard National Cemetery in southwestern New Mexico, not far from where he grew up as a child and where his parents still live, Cowan said.

As a result of his latest findings, Phillips told the Star-Advertiser that Punchbowl will contact the 95 affected families in January to explain the relocation of their loved ones’ memorial markers and apologize for not notifying them sooner.

Phillips also told Cowan that Punchbowl staff were given additional training as a result of what happened in this case, Cowan said.