Locals will rally to escort veterans' cremains

Local motorcyclists and motorists will gather Friday to travel to Ronan and escort the cremains of two Montana veterans to their final resting place in a cemetery at Fort Harrison in Helena.

Through the Montana Missing in America Project, the cremated remains of the late Ronan residents Pfc. Clayton Sandknop and Master Sergeant Paul Ploskunak were discovered in storage in a funeral home in Ronan.

Their interment ceremony, scheduled for 2 p.m. Friday, marks the first victory in a bureaucratic battle to find and pay final respects with military honors to Montana veterans who went to funeral homes but never came out.

Marty Malone, state coordinator for Montana Missing in America, said these veterans died after getting out of the service. Ploskunak was a 26-year veteran of the Air Force with service in World War II, Korea and Vietnam. Sandknop served in World War II.

Both died in Ronan but no one claimed their remains.

"These two people have been in a box for two years and that's long enough," he said.For more of this story, see the print edition of Monday's Inter Lake.