ROCHESTER, N.Y. — A veteran’s family says Riverside Cemetery on Lake Avenue isn’t doing enough to maintain veterans’ headstones.

Private First Class Daniel Jose Rivera died in 2009 in Iraq and is buried in the veterans section at Riverside Cemetery. His headstone is now sinking into the ground, and his sister says he deserves better.

“We have him here in the veterans section at Riverside for a reason. This is our home. You know, he had all the honors to be buried in Arlington, but we chose to keep him home. So it’s saddening that we have to deal with this,” Rivera’s sister Shadel Bradford said.

Daniel’s mother, Myriam Bates, says she now regrets having him buried at Riverside. She’s in the process of getting him moved to Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. “It’s been the biggest mistake of my life putting him here,” Bates said.

Bates comes to the cemetery whenever she can, depending on the weather. She has tried several times to dig out the headstone. Dirt now covers Daniel’s military accomplishments written on his headstone.

“Daniel earned a Bronze Star, and the star is pretty much almost in the ground. You can’t even see it on the stone anymore,” Bradford said.

News10NBC reporter Declan Stablow found Daniel’s headstone was the only one sinking like this, but several of the flat veteran headstones were also covered in dirt and grass.

“They deserve better. I think that, you know, the families deserve better. And you can you can tell, you know, people who don’t have family members left anymore. Their headstones are almost covered completely up,” Bradford said.

Daniel’s family says they reached out to cemetery management about these issues, but nothing has been done. Stablow reached out to management at Riverside Cemetery to see if there are any plans to fix up the veteran graves, but he hasn’t heard back yet.

According to the City of Rochester website, cemeteries will fill sunken graves with topsoil but aren’t responsible for repairing gravestones.

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