Photo By Melissa Buckley | Soldiers with 3rd Chemical Brigade perform a three-volley salute, also known as a...... read more read more
Fort Leonard Wood community members took time to remember, honor and teach during a Wreaths Across America ceremony Saturday at the Missouri State Veterans Cemetery - Fort Leonard Wood.
“Across the country, at more than 3,700 memorial sites like this one, there are millions of Americans gathered as one nation to remember, honor and teach,” said Stacy Wilson, cemetery director. “Today, we remember the fallen, honor those that serve and teach the next generation the value of freedom.”
The Missouri State Veterans Cemetery - Fort Leonard Wood is located just outside the installation’s West Gate, making it easily accessible to the community — and hundreds gathered to participate in and watch the ceremony, including service members, their families, area Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Pulaski Young Marines and cadets with Waynesville High School’s Junior ROTC.
The crowd stood for a moment of silence and the posting of colors by a joint-service color guard here, before Sgt. Nicholas Johnson, with Fort Leonard Wood’s 399th Army Band, sent the lyrics of the National Anthem echoing across the cemetery.
The guest speaker at the event was Brig. Gen. Sarah Albrycht, U.S. Army Military Police School commandant, who said the Wreaths Across America gatherings across the country provide a unique opportunity for an important lesson.
“On Memorial Day, we remember our fallen heroes; on Veterans Day, we honor our service members, but today is special — today, we get to teach the next generation the true value of freedom,” Albrycht said.
During her speech, she asked the crowd to do something special.
“Please don’t rush. Stop for a moment. Read the name on the grave that you are placing a wreath on. Say it out loud. Let the wind carry the name, just like it heard the name from the lips of the roll call when it was called, and from their family members when they laid them to rest,” Albrycht said. “Give them the gift of your time in a season designed to do exactly that. It is not about how fast we get their wreaths out. For these folks laid to rest out here, there may only be two times a year somebody visits their grave — when we put a flag on it on Veterans Day, and today, when we get to lay a wreath on their grave.”
Before the crowd departed the ceremony site and headed toward the cemetery’s gravesites to lay wreaths, the 399th’s Sgt. Eric Trevino performed “Taps” and 3rd Chemical Brigade Soldiers presented military honors with a three-volley salute, also known as a 21-gun salute.
While wreaths were being laid at the veterans cemetery, Civil Air Patrol Composite Squadron MO-153 members were on post, placing wreaths on the graves at the Fort Leonard Wood Post Cemetery.
Wreaths Across America is a nonprofit organization founded in 2007, to continue and expand the annual wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery, in Washington, D.C. According to their website, 2.7 million wreaths were placed nationwide at 3,702 locations in 2022.
| Date Taken: | 12.16.2023 |
| Date Posted: | 12.27.2023 09:03 |
| Story ID: | 460864 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 45 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Fort Leonard Wood community honors veterans during Wreaths Across America service, by Melissa Buckley, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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