When a soldier is killed in combat, they are usually buried beneath an American flag. When veterans die here, they receive a similar honor — a metal grave marker which allows a small flag to be flown over the grave.

A veteran from Summit Hill recently made it his priority to restore those grave markers after noticing that many of them had been damaged over the years.Over the past six months, Summit Hill resident John Poko has fixed more than 700 veterans’ grave markers — representing veterans from the Vietnam War back to the 1898 Spanish-American War — in the Panther Valley area, and gained the recognition of local veterans along the way.Poko, a Vietnam-era veteran of the Marine Corps, said he keeps restoring them because veterans deserve to be recognized for the sacrifices they made.“My motivation is just that it gets done,” he said. “It’s something for my fellow veterans that they rightly deserve.”Poko made it his goal to make sure every marker in the cemeteries of Summit Hill and nearby White Bear was in good working order. Summit Hill is home to several large cemeteries that were donated by the coal company to local churches about a century ago. They also are the burial sites for many deceased vets from Lansford, which has no cemeteries because it is surrounded by coal mines.Poko is on the board of a Russian cemetery in Summit Hill, and started the project there. But after a friend asked him to check on his father’s grave in another cemetery, he realized that there were damaged markers all over the area.“It’s kind of snowballed,” he said. “Into a blizzard.”Partially retired, but still driving a truck, Poko spent most days this summer working out of the back of his pickup restoring the markers. In most cases, the medallions have fallen off their post. Poko uses a tap to make a thread on the end of the post, then secures it back together with nuts. The finished product somewhat resembles a metal lollipop.In some cases, if the pieces are too damaged, he’ll take them to a friend, Ben Horvath, who welds them together.He has also identified missing markers for the Department of Veteran’s Affairs to replace. He recently noticed that Summit Hill’s “Unknown soldier” — a veteran of the 1860s-era Mexican-American War — didn’t have the correct medallion, so he had the office order another.Officials say they are appreciative of the work Poko has done.“I commend John for his commitment to maintaining the Summit Hill cemeteries. He has a high level of respect for our fellow veterans,” Henry Desrosiers, director of the Carbon County Office of Veterans Affairs, said.Desrosiers said that the county is required under state law to issue markers to any soldier who was honorably discharged from the military during a major conflict.“It’s a fitting memorial to show what period of service the veteran served during,” he said.Since he’s started the process, Poko has learned a great deal about the veterans of the area — stories like the “unknown soldier” who drowned in Summit Hill’s well in his full uniform, and Dominic Halner, a World War II veteran who won nine Bronze Stars. Two submariners who were lost at sea during WWII have markers in Summit Hill.It has also led to some more personal encounters. On the Fourth of July, he was working on the marker for a deceased vet named “Chubby” Carnish.Later that day, he met a relative of Carnish’s who had come to pay their respects.Another time he met a couple in their 90s who said they were former medics, and the oldest living veterans in Summit Hill. He said in that case he had to pinch himself to ensure he wasn’t imagining things.“You really think that weird things don’t happen in the cemetery?” he said.