Punchbowl flap will spur calls to kin

The director of Punchbowl cemetery plans to call about 380 families to inform them that memorial markers of their loved ones were moved six years ago, and likely will apologize for not informing the families back then, a Department of Veterans Affairs official said Thursday.

The planned action comes in response to an inquiry that Brad Phillips, the agency official who oversees all national cemeteries in the West, completed after a Florida woman discovered in December that her late husband’s marker had been moved without her knowledge.

As it turns out, the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, Punchbowl’s formal name, failed to notify roughly 380 families in 2006 when markers in one section were realigned to make room for an additional 300 placements, according to Phillips.

Punchbowl policy required that the families be notified then.

At issue is a section called MB, which does not contain graves, but is reserved for memorializing veterans whose remains were never recovered or were buried at sea, were cremated or were donated for research.

While the numbers on the markers were not changed during the realignment — the stones are arranged in numerical order — the numbering layout was changed from vertical columns to horizontal rows, essentially shifting the marker locations 90 degrees and putting them on smaller plots. The stones closest to the first one were moved only a few feet, while those farther out were moved as much as 30 yards, according to Phillips.

During her December visit, Kari Cowan said she was horrified to find someone else’s marker at her husband’s original spot. Her teenage son eventually discovered his father’s marker one row over and on the opposite side of the section.

When Cowan complained to Punchbowl staff, she was told repeatedly that she was mistaken and that the marker had not been moved — a stance the cemetery maintained until the Star-Advertiser began asking questions in April. By then Cowan’s complaint had attracted the attention of the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The Star-Advertiser reported in May that Phillips and the House committee were looking into the Punchbowl flap. Phillips acknowledged at the time that Punchbowl had mishandled the matter, and apologized to the Florida widow.

Cowan said this week she was pleased the other families finally will be notified. She was so upset about how Punchbowl staff dealt with her concerns that she didn’t want her husband’s marker to remain there.

At no expense to Cowan, the department last month placed a new marble memorial marker at a national cemetery in New Mexico, where her husband, an Army chief warrant officer 3, grew up. Aaron Cowan died at age 37 in 2005 from injuries suffered in a helicopter crash in South Korea.

Cowan said the New Mexico cemetery staff, unlike the Punchbowl personnel, treated her with much kindness and respect, along with her husband’s family.

"There was such a sharp contrast," she said.

In an email response to Star-Advertiser questions, Phillips said he was aware of only one family that had expressed concern about the Punchbowl realignment.

The phone notifications are expected to start by the end of next week.

Although the agency still hasn’t approved a final script that Punchbowl Director Gene Castagnetti will use when talking to the families, he likely will apologize for the cemetery not notifying the next of kin about the realignment in 2006, according to Phillips, who is Castagnetti’s boss.

Castagnetti said he intends to make the phone calls himself.

If families can’t be contacted by phone, certified letters will be sent to the last known address that Punchbowl has for them, Phillips said.

Asked whether Punchbowl staff were disciplined over the communications breakdown, Phillips and Castagnetti said they couldn’t comment on personnel actions.

U.S. Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., who heads the House committee, issued a statement to the Star-Advertiser.

"Again, our families of the fallen are enduring more suffering as a result of this latest error to come to light at Punchbowl," Miller wrote. "I have asked VA for a complete accounting of the cemetery management and oversight to ensure first and foremost that the families affected are treated with the respect and dignity they deserve, and second to make public any other errors the public has a right to know."