After seven months of delay, the Department of Veterans Affairs finally approved World War II veteran James Alderson’s pension benefits last week.

The day after Veterans Day, U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Luke Parrott walks through the rows of headstones in Section 60 where several of his friends and soldiers he served with are buried at Arlington National Cemetery Nov. 12 in Arlington, Virginia. A veteran of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Parrott was injured in an IED blast in Baghdad in 2005. Parrott spent time sitting and talking to the graves of the soldiers he knew. ‘It’s as close as we can get to talking anymore,’ he said. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty)

But it was not a cause for celebration or relief for Alderson, whose life’s work was the farm-supply store he founded near Chico, Calif., after returning home from the Battle of the Bulge.

The 89-year-old veteran had died three months earlier in a Yuba City nursing home.

‘My father was a very proud person,