Skip to footer

Vets honored with Christmas wreaths at 900 cemeteries

More than 200,000 Christmas wreaths are being laid Saturday at headstones of US veterans at Arlington National Cemetery and other cemeteries around the US. 

  • By Staff Associated Press

| Arlington, Va.

Hundreds of volunteers are expected at Arlington National Cemetery to lay more than 200,000 wreaths at headstones throughout the grounds.

Organizer of the annual Wreaths Across America event will be at the cemetery Saturday in an effort to lay a wreath at every grave marker in the cemetery.

Arlington officials are recommending that volunteers who want to help lay wreaths take Metro to the cemetery and wear comfortable walking shoes.

A ceremony connected to event is planned for 9 a.m. A wreath will be laid at President Kennedy's tomb at 11 a.m., and at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at noon.

Similar wreath-laying ceremonies are taking place Saturday at more than 900 locations around the US. About 540,000 wreaths were placed last year.

For example, a wreath-laying ceremony is being held at Rhode Island's veterans cemetery to honor current service members, veterans and those who were killed while serving.

The ceremony is taking place at the Rhode Island Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Exeter on Saturday and will coincide with other events across the country. It begins with a moment of silence at noon. Wreaths will then be laid on the gravesites of veterans recently killed in action. Every branch of the service will be represented.

In Sumter, S.C., t he Sumter squadron of the Civil Air Patrol is holding a ceremony to help honor veterans who have passed away by placing holiday wreaths at cemeteries across the country.

And more than 5,300 wreaths are set to be placed on individual grave sites at the North Dakota Veterans Cemetery.

Members of the Bismarck Composite Squadron, Civil Air Patrol are leading the annual Wreaths Across America ceremony.

The wreaths being laid at Arlington National Cemetary arrived via a convoy from Maine. The truckloads of wreaths were escorted by Patriot Guard Riders when they left Worcester Wreath Co. last weekend. One of the riders was Maine First Lady Ann LePage, who made the entire trip on the back of a three-wheeled motorcycle.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Vets honored with Christmas wreaths at 900 cemeteries
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2014/1213/Vets-honored-with-Christmas-wreaths-at-900-cemeteries
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe