A little chip scars the granite, but otherwise Ralph Douglas Preston’s tombstone, honoring an American veteran, is in excellent condition.

He defended our country in World War II as an Army sergeant. He survived the war but died in Houston in 1979.

Now, nearly 30 years later, the vet’s death has stirred up a mystery.

He’s not among the 63,000 men and women buried at Houston’s National Cemetery.

He was not laid to rest at any military Cemetery in the United States.

So where exactly is he? And why do so many people suddenly care?

Last week, a man walking his dog found Ralph Douglas Preston’s headstone, of all places, laying next to a Conoco gas station in Stafford.

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The man who made the discovery called the Elks Lodge, hoping somebody there could help.

“And I said, ‘we can’t leave that tombstone there,’” Dan Luce said. “We have to do something with it.”

Elks care a lot about veterans; the lodge even has a director of veterans’ affairs.

“We don’t know if he ever was an Elk. We don’t know a thing about him,” Luce said. “We are researching it. We haven’t found it yet, and we’re willing to put this tombstone in our garden of remembrance out of reverence to his memory”

So with care and respect, the Elks moved the headstone and started digging into history.

“We know that his wife and he and his son were from the Houston area,” Luce said.

His wife, they learned, recently passed away, and they haven’t been able to find his son.

As Cody Dunne laid Preston’s marker to rest in the Elks’ garden of remembrance, there was and still is hope this won’t be the final resting place for Ralph Douglas Preston’s marker.

“We certainly just want the tombstone to where it should be,” Luce said.

So if you know where this veteran’s final memorial belongs, the Elks want to hear from you.