A Vet Worried Nobody Would Be at His Funeral, 200 Mainers Showed

Editor's note: This article was written by a Townsquare Media Northern New England contributor and may contain the individual's views, opinions or personal experiences.

How about a story to help restore your faith in humanity?

This event took place in Augusta on May 12, at a funeral for a Vietnam era veteran.

According to WMTW-TV, the funeral was for Linwood Ray, who sadly had no family. The station reported that the group, Bangor Area Veterans United, heard about this and immediately went into action. The hope was to get a nice showing at the veteran's funeral, so the word needed to get out. The group made a social media post, and the word most definitely got out.

According to WMTW-TV, the post had over 1,000 shares, which led to over 200 folks attending Linwood's funeral. And, as the article points out, most of the guests had never even met the late veteran. It was just a simple act of kindness.

It's the same kind of act that we sadly don't talk about as much anymore, but they still exist. And, there's still masses of wonderful people that fill this world, especially here in this great state. It seems that many of them attended this funeral.

According to WMTW-TV, Ray served eight years in the Air Force, many of them during the Vietnam War Era. He was living at the Maine Veteran's Home in Bangor at the time of his passing.

A very hearty thank you to the Bangor Area Veterans United, Maine Veteran Project, countless people who helped get the word out, and hundreds who showed up to a funeral for a man they probably never knew existed until that day. This is us at our best.

And thank you to Linwood Ray for all you did for this great country.

A Look Inside Loring Air Force Base

For decades, Maine's Loring Air Force Base played a key role in the defense of the United States. The base, located near the town of Limestone, was home to a squadron of B-52 bombers. The following images come from videos from here, here, and here.