Pueblo County veteran’s body coming home after family found out he died through Google search

PUEBLO COUNTY, Colo. (KRDO)- For the last two years, a Pueblo County family has been trying to find their brother, Alvin Pugh, an Air Force Veteran who was living in New York City. They had been in consistent communication with him up until late January 2022 when he did not return their calls, text messages, or emails.

The Pugh's called hospitals in New York and the Police, but nobody knew where he was.

On March 16, 2024, through a Google Search, they discovered that he passed away on February 2, 2022, after suffering from a pulmonary embolism. He was buried the following year at Calverton National Cemetery in New York.

The family said they were never notified of his death despite the VA having their contact information.

"It's been hurtful. And what's sad is it's not because he died, It's because of how he was treated. You know, and no veteran should be treated that way," said Patti Pugh, Alvin's sister.

Initially, the family told KRDO13 that the VA was not going to pay to bring Alvin's body back to southern Colorado.KRDO13 asked the VA last week about this situation. It said in statement in part that the VA was working with family, but would not answer if they were going to pay for it. Then, on Wednesday the VA told the family that it would pay to bring him home.

KRDO13 reached out to the VA and they gave us the following statement below.

We at VA offer our deepest condolences to Mr. Pugh’s family, and we are working with them directly to provide any support we can. We have agreed to reinter Mr. Pugh at Pikes Peak National Cemetery – as requested by the family – and we continue to explore all options to provide further support to Mr. Pugh’s family during this difficult time.

In cases of unclaimed remains of Veterans whose deaths did not occur in VA facilities, VA generally relies upon the reporting municipalities and professionals (coroners, medical examiners, and funeral directors) to contact Veterans’ next of kin. While those efforts were made in this case, New York City was unable to contact Mr. Pugh’s family before facilitating his interment in one of VA’s National Cemeteries. However, as Mr. Pugh’s family notes, VA did have contact information for Mr. Pugh’s family in a separate records system at the time of his interment. We deeply apologize for not identifying that before his burial, and we are taking steps to prevent this from happening again in the future.  

To that end, VA’s Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) recently established a program to place specialized Indigent Veterans and Unclaimed Remains Coordinators (IVURC) at every VA Regional Office, who work closely with points of contact within the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) to search for a next-of-kin when an unclaimed deceased Veteran is reported to a VA Regional Office. IVURCs are required to utilize all evidence of record in the VA applications available to them, as well as communicating with the VHA point of contact, to exhaust all attempts to locate a next-of-kin. If a next-of-kin is located, the IVURC will:

• encourage them to assume burial responsibilities,

• advise them of any possible burial benefits available, and

• act as liaison between the claimant and the institution in possession of the remains to provide contact information for each party.

Providing all Veterans – including those whose remains are unclaimed – with the lasting resting places and memorial services they deserve is a top priority for VA. We are conducting a full review of our policies to do whatever we can to prevent this from happening again.

Again, we offer our deepest condolences to Mr. Pugh’s family for their loss. We will continue to work directly with them moving forward.

Veteran Affairs

The Pugh family said they're going to continue to work with the VA to ensure this does not happen to another family.