It looks like veterans buried at Riverside National Cemetery will be honored with flags this November after all.
As the U.S. government shutdown continues, a nonprofit group’s annual effort to put small flags at each gravesite was canceled.
RELATED: Riverside National Cemetery cancels flag-placing event, Veterans Day ceremony
But an Inland Empire union says it will continue the pre-Veterans Day tradition Saturday, Nov. 8, at the cemetery.
More than 300 union carpenter volunteers from the Inland Local 951 and Local 909 chapters of the Western States Regional Council of Carpenters and their families plan to gather in the morning to place nearly 3,000 U.S. flags at veterans’ graves.
The flags will be in one section of the cemetery and their number will be far shy of the more than 270,000 flags usually placed at the events organized by the nonprofit Honoring Our Fallen.
After the military cemetery canceled its official flag placement event that was set for Saturday — and its Veterans Day ceremony on Tuesday, Nov. 11 — union members said they felt it was important to continue “making sure heroes are not forgotten at Riverside National Cemetery.”
Alex Madrid, a union chapter representative, said Friday, Nov. 7, that members bought their own flags.
Union carpenters, along with Boy and Girl Scout troops, churches, businesses, volunteer groups and others, had been a part of the annual flag placement for years. The event, typically held just before Memorial Day and Veterans Day, is organized by the Orange County-based Honoring Our Fallen and includes an honor guard ceremony and thousand of volunteers planting flags, then taking them down after the holidays.
Officials with Honoring Our Fallen announced this week that its flag placement event would not happen, citing “significant staffing reductions” and “logistical challenges,” including “limited access to facilities, trash management and traffic control.”
Madrid, who said the union has donated flags to Honoring Our Fallen, added that it was important for the carpenters to act.
“We have members with family buried there, and a lot of our own (union) members are buried there,” Madrid said. “It means a lot to the organization to honor our veterans. We had a lot who were saying, ‘What could we do?’”
Union volunteers will remove the flags Wednesday, Nov. 12, Madrid said.
“When the government shuts down, service doesn’t stop,” a Local 951 news release states. “These union carpenters are proving that patriotism and respect for our fallen never take a day off.”
Military interments/burials continue at the cemetery, which remains open from sunrise to sunset during the shutdown. People also are invited to place their own flags to honor veterans, organizers with the union and Honoring Our Fallen said.
Source link
