Sullivan — Last Tuesday’s sunshine was not enough light for World War II veteran Sonner Faught, who spent the morning scouring cemeteries trying to decipher headstones nearly as old as the nation itself.
Faught busily ran his wrinkled fingers along faded, disappearing epitaphs, trying to find the grave sites he sought out.
It’s a practice more than 40 years old.
Faught visited more than a dozen cemeteries in Sullivan County over the past two weeks to honor nearly 300 deceased veterans who fought for the United States in wars ranging from the American Revolution to Desert Storm.
It’s an American Legion tradition that has become his own.
“Gone but not forgotten,” was written on the headstone of George Case, a veteran who died in 1901 and is buried in Walls Cemetery. When Faught, 81, saw the grave, he placed a flag into his hand and drove it into the soft earth in front of the headstone.
While many people, including Faught and others from Sullivan’s American Legion Post 139, pay their Memorial Day respects to veterans buried in Sullivan’s large Center Ridge Cemetery in Legion tradition, Faught has been planting flags at soldiers’ graves in smaller cemeteries throughout Sullivan County since 1963.
“I think that it’s important that we remember those who serve,” said Faught, a Sullivan County councilman for 22 years. “It’s nice to remember them while they’re living, but after they’re gone, you have to remember who [served].”
Faught first started the tradition when two men, including a World War I veteran, asked him to take over the practice. He and Bill Carter, his best friend and fellow World War II veteran, took over the task.
Faught and Carter regularly honored the deceased servicemen from the 1960s to the 1980s. By the early 1990s, Carter’s health deteriorated and he could no longer help Faught.
Carter now receives a flag every year at his grave in Center Ridge.
“That was one of the things they did together, and they enjoyed it,” said Ruth Carter, Bill’s widow. “They were the best of friends.”
In all those years, Faught only missed out once — in 1968, when his wife died. He continues the tradition, which includes giving tribute to an isolated grave entrenched in vegetation so thick that Faught needs to create his path with a hatchet.
“I think it’s a worthwhile thing to do,” Faught said. “I think the veterans and the veterans’ families appreciate all the work that goes into placing the Memorial Day flags on the graves.”
He still receives help, such as from his wife Joann, whom he married in 1971. Joann has helped Sonner in the cemeteries several times through the years and steam-irons clean flags that Sonner picks up from Center Ridge after Memorial Day, so they can be used the following year.
“He believes in the American Legion, and he wants to support the veterans.” Joann said.
Still, nobody has regularly helped Sonner on his circuit around the smaller cemeteries. Sonner is trying to get younger people involved in the tradition, such as Tony Cornelius, Post 139 president, who helped Sonner last Tuesday.
“Hopefully there will be some officers or volunteers that will pick up the ball and start running with it,” said Cornelius, who served in the Navy and Air Force during the 1950s and ’60s.
Cornelius discovered the difficulty of Sonner’s tradition. While some epitaphs were easy to read, others were on headstones so old they had almost completely faded.
At Coffman Cemetery, the two men left four flags by the entrance in recognition of four bodies they could not find.
“Time eventually gets them,” Cornelius said of the headstones. “They will deteriorate over time.”
So long as Sonner is still healthy, at least one person will pay tribute to the soldiers. Sonner said nobody has expressed much of an interest in taking over.
“As far as I know, I’ll still be on the job,” he said.
Austin Arceo can be reached at (812) 231-4214 or austin.arceo@tribstar.com.
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