One afternoon, Charles Kratz gave a homeless veteran outside a Palm Beach dog track enough money for a steak dinner and told him he was in the big one.
“I meant World War II,” Kratz said. “But he looked at me and said, ?They?re all big when you?re in them.?”
Kratz cited the brief encounter as a trigger for his decade-long crusade to restore dignity to the lives of veterans.
The former auto parts business owner served as an Army chemical warfare technician for six years in World War II and recently dedicated the third phase of his personal veterans? memorial park in Baltimore County?s Druid Ridge Cemetery.
Kratz erected a granite memorial wall, benches engraved with quotes from fellow veterans ? including buddies from the famous 101st Airborne Easy Co. ? and a museum to showcase the war memorabilia he has collected over the years. The park is not far from the graves of his wife and other family members.
The park is the product of $1 million of Kratz?s own money and more than $100,000 in donations.
“I was sitting on this bench where my wife is buried thinking, ?What am I going to do with all this money?? ” he said.
“I looked at this tree and said, ?I?m going to build me a World War II memorial park.?”
But Kratz emphasized his biggest goal looms ahead: He bought 90 grave plots around the museum and wants to bury homeless and needy veterans.
He said that because he bought in bulk, he can sell the plots to veterans at half price ? saving them as much as $1,200.
The state also offers a program to bury homeless and needy veterans with military honors, said Bob Hooper, director of cemetery and memorial programs for the Maryland Department of VeteransAffairs.
After verifying the deceased is a veteran through research, he said the state provides a plot and headstone in one of Maryland?s five veteran-designated cemeteries for free.
But only four to five veterans out of 11 who die in Maryland benefit from the program, he said.
“We?ll ensure there are honors presented, but most of the time there is no family,” he said. “It?s a sad situation.”
