At long last, five forgotten Flathead Valley military veterans and two from Billings will reach their final resting place at Fort Harrison today.

They are scheduled  for interment at 2:30 p.m. with full military honors at Montana State Veterans Cemetery.

Thanks to the Montana Chapter of Missing in America Project and the Patriot Guard Montana, the unclaimed cremains of Kalispell veterans Jon William Ball, James Brodniak, Charles Shelton and Charles Rollin Spears and Whitefish veteran Michael Lynn Shannon were transferred Thursday from Buffalo Hill Funeral Home to the care of Montana State Chaplain Rikki Perkins for transport to Helena.

At the last minute, the cremains of veteran Gregory Martin were included in the transfer ceremony to go to Fort Harrison for additional processing. He was a Vietnam-era veteran from Helena.

A similar ceremony took place at Dahl Funeral Home in Billings to transfer the cremains of veterans Orville Clinton Hatch and Anthony Mills to Marty Malone, Montana state coordinator of Missing in America Project.

In Billings and Kalispell, Patriot Guard Riders provided a flag line at the transfer ceremonies on Thursday. The Patriot Guard then will participate in motorcycle escorts today that link up in Butte for the final leg of the journey to Fort Harrison.

Stephen Douglas of Columbia Falls, a member of the Christian  Motorcyclists Association, led the Kalispell escort.

A similar effort in 2009 rescued the unclaimed remains of two veterans from storage at a Ronan funeral home.

Malone said all of these veterans died after their service. He said one had languished in a funeral home for almost 25 years.

According to Malone, someone signed an authorization to cremate each of the men. But repeated efforts to contact family or friends to claim the remains have failed.

He credited Patriot Guard member Dallas Nelson for working with Richard Smart, a mortician at Buffalo Hill Funeral Home, to find the five Flathead Valley veterans.

Nelson participated in the 2009 cremains escort, then looked for other forgotten veterans until he died in October 2010.

Smart said Thursday that Nelson put in many hours to find and confirm the veterans among the unclaimed cremains stored at Buffalo Hill Funeral Home. He called it a time-consuming task that requires working through Veterans Affairs and service groups such as the American Legion.

“Dallas just picked the ball up and ran with it,” he said.

According to Smart, none of the five Flathead Valley veterans had family here.

Nelson discovered that Shelton, a Navy veteran, served in World War II while Brodniak and Ball served in the army in Vietnam. Also Army veterans, Spears served from 1955 to 1958 and Shannon served from 1974 to 1975.

Marilyn Nelson, Dallas’ wife, attended the transfer ceremony on Thursday. She described how her husband served in the Army and had a heart for helping veterans.

“He was just excited to be able to find these guys and give them a proper military burial,” she said. “He didn’t think it was right for them to be left at the funeral home.”

Reporter Candace Chase may be reached at 758-4436 or by email at cchase@dailyinterlake.com.