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Well, after my talk with undertaker Bongiovi I was still getting differing versions of whether the body had passed through Raritan, where a mass was said at St. Ann’s Church, several sources insisting they had seen the casket. So I asked Deacon John Pacifico of the church to clear up the mystery. On September 2, 2008, he wrote back: “Dear Jim, Both Anna Marie Bongiovi and Steve Del Rocco have confirmed that the body of John Basilone never came to Raritan. The body was at Arlington.”

So at some point the decision had been made to bury their son at Arlington, instead of in New Jersey. Some sources say Bongiovi recommended Arlington. He didn’t say that to me but continued telling me what then happened.

According to Doorly it was the undertaker who convinced Dora being buried at Arlington was a big deal, would do honor to her boy, and that Arlington was where Basilone belonged. I don’t believe that any of them, including the undertaker Bongiovi, suspected what was coming. They all expected an intimate little funeral, a prayer from Father Russo, some friends, the family, a rite appropriate to a small Jersey town and a blue-collar family and their boy who never made money or much of a splash when he lived there, who joined the Marines, and then died in the war.

The burial was on April 20, 1948, but the Basilone funeral was going to be relentlessly small-town. Police chief Rossi volunteered to drive the limo, Bongiovi volunteered the undertaking services, Father Russo drove up front with the chief, with Dora and Sal, the parents, in back. A couple of other cars made up the cortege, carrying Basilone brothers and sisters and some neighbors. Al Gaburo the laundryman came, the man who once fired Johnny for goofing off and sleeping on the laundry bags; the mayor Rocco Miele; a future mayor, Steve Del Rocco. It was about two hundred miles, but the traffic was lighter then and they made it in under four hours.

Bongiovi told me they expected a simple affair, a couple of guys with rifles, maybe a bugler to play Taps, that was about it. Doorly gives this account from the family and Raritan vantage point: “When they arrived, they were amazed. First, they were picked up from their vehicles and driven in jeeps to the grave site. There they saw dozens of military dignitaries, a Marine band, and uniformed soldiers [Marines, surely] who would fire a gun salute. It was a most impressive, inspiring service, a true tribute to an unselfish hero. Father Russo blessed the casket. An American flag had first covered the coffin, and then as is customary, it was later taken off, folded in the ritual manner, and given to the Basilone family. Anthony Bongiovi, when he spoke with Doorly, said the funeral was simply unbelievable. He recalls that it was during the playing of Taps that everyone became emotional. The family and friends all drove back the same day.”

More than four hundred miles down and back and eight hours behind the wheel. No one thought to have reserved a couple of hotel rooms or a motel, what was then called a travel court. Maybe they didn’t have the dough. But they had properly buried their Johnny. Lena Riggi Basilone, the widow, wasn’t there. She had come east after the war to meet John’s family, though only the once. Her niece, an actress and dancer, lives in New York, where in 2007 I interviewed her.

Doorly contacted Virginia Grey for a comment to use in his monograph, asking if she remembered Basilone. She was eighty-seven by then and still living in California, and she sent a statement: “How I do remember John. Every time I pass Basilone Drive at Camp Pendleton, it brings tears to my eyes.”

Curiously, there is very little about Basilone’s widow, though there is a photo from 1949 when she and the family attended in Boston the commissioning of the destroyer USS Basilone on July 26. Doorly writes this brief passage about her: “Lena did not meet John’s parents until after his death when she came to New Jersey. A picture of them together appears in this book. She never remarried,