Veteran Finds Military Burial Flag Hidden For 30 Years
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RIVER OAKS (CBSDFW.COM) - Kerry Cremean and his wife had just bought their Black Oak Lane home, when he decided to look for storage space in their new garage.
What Cremean found in a crawl space, brought him to tears.
"It's like I'm holding someone's life," Cremean explained carefully handling an American flag neatly folded into a triangle.
"Just like it came off the casket and was folded in his honor; it's wonderful," Cremean's wife Cindy said.
The contents of the leather bag he found, belong to Robert Allen Murray. The Fort Worth son had red hair and blue eyes, according to his application for Armed Forces ID. He would have been 29 at the time a photo -- also found inside the bag -- was taken.
It's possible Murray may served in the Navy around the same time retired Army Sergeant Cremean was fighting in Vietnam.
"This was a forgotten member of the military. Someone needs to remember him," said Mr. Cremean.
The couple have played detective since, even using Facebook to try to reunite the priceless items with the serviceman's family members.
"I rejected Facebook for a long time," said Cindy, laughing.
"I just wasn't going to go that route. I'm so grateful that we have it.
They're hoping technology that didn't exist in Murray's lifetime, might reunite his daughters with this piece of him.
His three girls, were all under 10 when Murray died in a car accident in 1980.
According to documents found in the bag, their names are Joyce Delane, Elizabeth Alana, and Kerry Ann.
The fact that one of the daughters shares a first name with Kerry, isn't lost on him.
"Same way I spell mine," he said.
"I felt that was more than coincidental. I felt God led me to this," Cremean explained.
And so it has been the veteran's mission to do what is right for a fellow brother, a stranger who he feels he knows well.
"I'm proud to have found this and I hope to find a person that this belongs to. He deserves that," he said.
Mrs. Cremean said Facebook has given her some leads.
"The Facebook search was a tremendous help. It put me in contact with people who knew him, and that was a real blessing," she said.
A friend of Murray's she met on Facebook, even gave her a possible address for his widow. After personally traveling to the home with no success, Mrs. Cremean has mailed a letter there. She has not found contact information for the daughters, two of whom were from Murray's first marriage.
"I just hope that it gives them a piece and a little bit of history of what their father did and their accomplishments," she said.
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