Hundreds of marble tombstones, marking the final resting place of generations of Utah veterans, stood in the northeast corner of the Salt Lake City Cemetery, like row upon row of broken, jagged teeth. For years, leaders of the veterans community sought support from city, state and federal leaders to bring the cemetery back into repair, to no avail.

It finally fell upon local citizens to bring the headstones back into military form. On Friday afternoon, the cemetery was rededicated in a ceremony. And City Council member J.T. Martin, saying he felt "woefully inadequate" in addressing a gathering of veterans at the event, lamented that "all too often, we let places such as this cemetery fall into disrepair."

"We should have done better," Martin said, blaming a lack of resources for the city's inattention to the dilapidated graveyard. "And we will do better."

That's all Craig Moyes wanted to hear. His company, West Jordan-based ONYX Construction, donated much of the time and labor involved in resetting the headstones, after Moyes saw a television report on the cemetery.

"I was so disappointed," said Moyes, who served in the Air Force during the Vietnam War. "I went to work the next day and said, 'Let's find out what it's going to take to get it fixed.' "

Ryan Carter, a master sergeant in the 388th Air Wing at Hill Air Force Base who volunteered on the project, said he felt let down when he saw the condition of the cemetery.

"It was in such disarray when I first saw it," said Carter, who lives in Clearfield. "I just couldn't leave until all of the headstones were upright."

Carter said he simply doesn't understand how it was that no one had stood up before to fix the problem. "Utah has such a heritage of taking care of its veterans," he said. "It just didn't make sense to me."

In his contrite speech, Martin blamed a lack of resources for the problem. But many of those in the audience believed it was a lack of political interest on the part of former Mayor Rocky Anderson's administration. In October, a group of veterans' leaders from across the state agreed to boycott any rededication ceremony that took place before Memorial Day of this year, effectively ensuring the outspoken former mayor would not be involved.

In an October interview with The Tribune, Anderson argued that he had been unfairly targeted for blame.

"I have supported and am supporting this project," he said. "I haven't been up there straightening headstones, but I knew that public services was working on it . . . they're part of my administration. If I had been resistant at all, it wouldn't have happened."

mlaplante@sltrib.com