A funeral director is making a final gesture to honor a former U.S. military veteran who died alone.

Peter Turnpu, 77, served in Vietnam but left little behind about his life since.

Funeral director Leroy Wooster said he found a letter from the local Veterans Administration among Turnpu’s few possessions after he died last month in his home in Waterford, Camden County.

Now he has launched an effort to encourage mourners to attend a burial service Friday for Turnpu so he won’t be laid to rest alone.

“The choice I had was to turn my back and leave him at the Medical Examiners officer to be buried in Potters Field, or to donate my time, casket and other resources make sure he goes to a veterans cemetery to get buried,” Wooster said Thursday.

Wooster said the VA has promised to provide a military honor guard for the service and pay for the burial plot despite the current federal government shutdown. He said an appeal he made to a local news broadcast has generated interests and resonated on social media.

“I’m happy to say that many people will be at the cemetery,” Wooster said.

The service will be held Friday at the Brigadier General William C. Doyle Veterans' Memorial Cemetery, 350 Provinceline Road in Wrightstown. Mourners are asked to arrive no later than 1:30 p.m. for a procession to the graveside at 2 p.m.

Wooster said an honor guard from nearby Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst will perform a ceremony and an American Legion Post from Pine Hill will also participate in the service.

Turnpu had no surviving relatives. He came to America from Estonia with his mother and became a citizen in 1954, Wooster said.

He served in Vietnam from 1964 to 1966 and was honorably discharged. He had worked as a truck driver for a small South Jersey company. He was married, but divorced in 1980.

“The only papers he saved were his immigration papers for him and his mother from Estonia and the letter from the Veterans Administration hospital,” Wooster said. “There was nothing more recent than 30 or 40 years ago.”

Wooster said Turnpu lived alone in a rented house. He said a neighbor alerted authorities when he hadn’t seen him and his body was discovered shortly afterward on Dec. 9.

“This could be anyone’s relative,” Camden County Freeholder Bill Moen said Thursday. “I don’t know this gentleman’s backstory. The effects of war or combat could have affected how this gentleman ended up in an unfortunate situation. But all of those things combined is why something like this is important for the community to give him a proper send off.”

Moen oversees services to veterans in the county. He said several organizations have told him they will have members attend Turnpu’s burial service Friday.

Wooster said it has taken a month since Turnpu died to coordinate his burial in a military cemetery. He said only one detail remains.

“I don’t know who is going to get the flag the honor guard presents at the end of Taps,” he said. “It should go to someone who deserves to receive it.”

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