MILITARY MARKER: MOTHER WANTS MARKER FOR SON'S GRAVE

MARBLE HILL -- Pat Bollinger says her son's grave deserves a military marker. But the federal government says Robert J. Bollinger's Marine Corps service record doesn't qualify him for the bronze marker.

For the past dozen years, she has sought help from lawmakers and pleaded with officials with the Department of Veterans Affairs in Washington to grant her request. But so far, she has lost every battle.

A friend, Harold Reed of Leopold, has pleaded her case to the government since 1992.

Reed ran unsuccessfully for Congress as an independent candidate six years ago.

At Reed's urging, Sens. Christopher "Kit" Bond and John Ashcroft have asked Veterans Affairs officials to look into the situation.

In a letter to Reed earlier this month, the senators said they would notify him when the inquiry has been completed.

Pat Bollinger said she doesn't understand how the government can deny a marker for her son's grave. "To me, it is a slap in the face."

But Veterans Affairs officials say her son, who died in a traffic accident on Nov. 24, 1985, near Jackson, didn't serve the necessary two years in active service needed to qualify for the marker. He was a member of the Marine Corps Reserve at the time of his death.

Reed said Robert Bollinger's military discharge form shows he served four months and nine days in active service in the Marine Corps in 1983, from July 11 to Nov. 29.

A veteran himself, Reed said that should be enough to qualify Bollinger's grave for a military marker from the government.

But Larry De Meo Jr., who directs the memorial programs service for the Department of Veterans Affairs in Washington, said Congress some years ago changed the law.

He said two years of active service is now needed. The training period alone isn't sufficient for a person to qualify for a military marker.

Members of military reserve units don't qualify unless they have served two years of active duty or have served in armed conflicts.

At the time of his death, Robert Bollinger worked for an insurance company in Cape Girardeau and was a member of a Marine Corps Reserve unit, headquartered in St. Louis.

Even if qualified for a marker in terms of active service, he legally isn't entitled to one.

There is already a tombstone at his grave in the Bollinger County Memorial Cemetery near Marble Hill. Pat Bollinger paid for the black granite gravestone.

De Meo said that a long-standing federal law allows the government to provide headstones or flat military markers only for unmarked graves of eligible veterans.

Reed said the law doesn't make sense. He has counted 150 graves at the Bollinger County cemetery that have both a tombstone and a military marker.

Some people pay $200 to $300 for bronze markers that are similar to the government-issued markers, said De Meo.

He said some of the markers in the Bollinger County cemetery may have been purchased privately.

But De Meo admits that the government issues military markers for the graves of many veterans whose families later erect tombstones.

"A lot of people don't know the law," he said. De Meo said applicants and cemetery officials must indicate that the grave is unmarked.

But the government doesn't inspect the gravesites. "I don't have marker police," De Meo said.

Under the law, the government markers are supposed to be removed if a private tombstone is later erected.

De Meo said his office can't ignore the law. "I know it seems like the government is being petty, but we have laws that we have to follow."

De Meo suggested Congress needs to change the law, which dates back to the 1920s.

"It is the biggest public relations headache that I have," he said of the unpopular regulation.

The federal government spends $53 for each military marker. The low cost is due to the large volume of markers purchased by the government, De Meo said.

"We will probably put out 150,000 to 160,000 flat, bronze markers every year," he said.

But that's little consolation to Pat Bollinger, who can't bury her frustration with the government.

"It tears me up," she said.