Last Man Standing

By Jack Emery and Braden Krumholz

Allen Stephen Braley

October 10, 1930 – July 16, 1999

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Braley is in the middle.

Allen Stephen Braley was born in New Hampshire to Ernest and Laura Braley on October 4, 1930. Allen was the youngest of six children: Lena, Mabel, Mark, Roger, and Ralph. Shortly after Allen’s birth, the Braley family moved from the East coast to the Denver area looking for a new start.[1] However, tragedy struck the Braleys in 1933, when Allen’s mother, Laura, passed away at the age of thirty, when Allen was only three years old.[2]

Allen spent the rest of his childhood in Denver, attending South High School. It was here where Allen first took an interest in military service. Allen was a member of South High School’s ROTC program, where he served in the C company and HQ company until he graduated in 1949.[3] Allen was too young to enlist in World War II; he likely wanted to join the military to both serve his nation as well as find adventure. So in late February of 1952, Braley boarded the USS General William Mitchell, to serve his country in the Korean War.

The Korean War was a conflict between North and South Korea, which was separated by the 38th parallel after Japan was forced to surrender Korea when World War II ended.[4] The country was divided because, after World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union decided to divide the country, with the North being controlled by the Soviet Union and the South by the United States.[5] The North became a communist state while the South was controlled by an anti-communist dictator, who was backed by the United States. Each side wanted full control of Korea, and in June of 1950, the North invaded the South. When the invasion began, President Harry Truman began to aid South Korea by sending American troops to fight off the North.[6] Truman believed the war was representative of the struggle between communism and capitalism and believed that the United States needed to contain communism to keep evil from spreading. South Korea became one of the first battlegrounds of the Cold War.

When Braley arrived in Korea, he was dispatched to the 6214 Administrative Support Unit where he was sent to an Army Unit as an individual replacement. It is unclear how long Braley was in Korea, but he likely was there until the war ended in July of 1953 when an armistice was signed between the North and South.[7]

Braley eventually left the Army and married the love of his life, Beverly Andrews, on July 31, 1954, in Los Angeles, California.[8] After the wedding, Braley moved back to Denver, Colorado, and got a job as a machinist, working with machine tools in a shop. After returning from Korea, Allen’s life was not easy. Having already lost his mother at a very young age and having seen war in Korea, Allen was accustomed to loss; however, that did not make it easier when he lost his father, Ernest, and his eldest brother, Mark in 1964.[9] Along the way, Allen lost Beverly as well; it is not clear what happened, but the couple did not leave behind any children. This final chapter of Allen’s life is undeniably sad; in 1997, Allen’s last surviving sibling, Roger, also passed away, leaving Allen Braley as the “last man standing.”[10] This meant that when Allen passed away two years later in 1999, there was no one to recover his cremains.

In tragic fashion, Braley’s ashes were left unattended and abandoned in storage at the mortuary he was cremated from 1999 to April of 2022, when his ashes, along with those of six other service members who were also recovered from the mortuary, were interred at Fort Logan National Cemetery thanks to the hard work of the local Vietnam Veterans Association (VVA) chapter in Denver. The sad truth is, there are many veterans whose remains are just like Allen Braley’s, abandoned in mortuary storage closets with no one to give them a proper send-off. That is why the VVA’s work on the Honors Burial Project is so important, men and women, like Allen Braley, who served their nation proudly deserve to be interred with their brothers and sisters in arms.

Footnotes ↓

[1] “1940 United States Federal Census.” Ancestry.com, entry for Allen Braley. Accessed May 16, 2022, https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/imageviewer/collections/2442/images/m-t0627-00485-00637?pId=39615068.

[2] “Allen Stephen Braley.” Ancestry.com, entry for Allen Braley. Accessed May 5, 2022. https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/family-tree/person/tree/16456229/person/350123477143/facts?_phsrc=md5-1496786&_phstart=successSource.

[3] “U.S., School Yearbooks, 1900-1999.” Ancestry.com, entry for Allen Braley. Accessed May 17, 2022. https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/discoveryui-content/view/270347081:1265.

[4] History.com Editors. “Korean War.” History.com. A&E Television Networks, November 9, 2009. Accessed May 16, 2022. https://www.history.com/topics/korea/korean-war.

[5] ibid.

[6] ibid.

[7]. ibid.

[8]. “California, US., Marriage Index, 1949-1959.” Ancestry.com, entry for Allen Braley. Accessed May 16, 2022. https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/discoveryui-content/view/1275517:5186?tid=&pid=&queryId=55087be4583862fad42d1443e6a4f1df&_phsrc=md5-29182&_phstart=successSource.

[9] “Allen Stephen Braley.” Ancestry.com, entry for Allen Braley. Accessed May 5, 2022. https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/person/tree/89710/person/25561360560/facts?_phsrc=YgC12116&_phstart=successSource.

[10] ibid.

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