Week 43: American Flags for America's Heros

Happy Memorial Day from this grateful American! I live freely because they died willingly. That fact is one I never take for granted.

Saturday morning was an activity I had been looking forward to for the past 11 months of this project: heading to Wood National Cemetary to place flags on the gravesites of military members. 

Mark and I assembled in front of the office with 150-200 other people, we signed in, listened to the short speech on notable people buried in the cemetery, heard the brief instructions on how to position the flags, to leave the pennies on the stones as we found them, and get an idea of which half would head to which part of the cemetery, and then we disbursed. 

All of us volunteers made our way to one of the large black bins of flags, collected as many bunches as we could carry, and set off to place our flags.

Within an hour, all 37,000+ grave markers had a flag respectfully centered a foot off the stone.

Mark and I chose the section where my grandpa and uncle are buried. We each picked a row and made our way down. 

I thanked each veteran by name as I placed their flag.

Those of us with flags remaining then made our way to the other side of the cemetery to see if any assistance was needed. We met up with another group who were just finishing the last section. And just like that we were done. 

We found one of the flag receptacles to put our leftovers in and then made our way through the cemetery back to our car. 

I couldn't help but say "wow" multiple times as I caught sight of the flags in the tidy rows, catching the wind at the resting places of these heroes.

They lived their lives at war so we can live ours in peace. 

May we remember them today and honor them always.