Wreaths Across America

On Saturday morning we met Hughes' Cub Scout troop to head down to Arlington to help distribute Christmas wreaths.  It was amazing.  Last year Wreaths Across America made 90,000 wreaths.  This year they made 140,000.  They say they need about 200,000 to be able to decorate every grave.  It was quite beautiful seeing volunteers of all ages come to pay their respect our country's heroes.  To be buried at Arlington you have to be a career military or killed while serving.  

Robert E. Lee's house is at the top of the hill.  You can see the flag at half mast from Friday's school shooting.  

There is a big parade of the volunteer trucks driving into Arlington.  They each have a designated section and at a certain time they start unloading the boxes which are filled with wreaths.  They also gave out hats to all the school children.

Troop hug

Our first soldier that we honored.

On the back of every wreath was this quote that they ask for you to say.  

After taking a rest, we went on a hunt to find my uncle's brother's grave.  It was quite a hunt but we finally found Paul's marker and were happy to lay another Christmas wreath.

Some graves you will notice don't have wreaths.  They asked to only lay the wreaths on the graves with the Christian symbol.  If a grave had the Star of David or crescent symbol then they asked for you to skip it.  This was asked of them by the Jewish and Muslim faiths.

We had one more wreath to lay and we wanted to honor our neighbor's wife.  Before we moved to DC, our neighbor, Mr. Gene, lost his wife.  She died in her sleep completely unexpected.  We love Mr. Gene and he has been wonderful to our boys.  We set out to find where Mrs. Lynn was interred on the Niche Wall.

Right when we were walking up (about 3 hours after I emailed Mr. Gene for the location of Mrs. Lynn) Mr. Gene was walking up.  God's timing is always perfect.

It was a very memorable day and I hope that we do it again next year.  Quite amazing.