An event happening soon

[booksbenji]

Pardon the Eyeball Sweat, Sirs and Ma'am's:


12 November 2006:

HARRINGTON, MAINE - The elderly man on the telephone, a World War II veteran, was calling all the way from Texas.

He'd just heard about the company Down East that donates wreaths by the thousands each Christmas to Arlington National Cemetery. But like so many people, he couldn't quite believe it.

"Is it really true?" he asked Sherry Scott, office manager for the Worcester Wreath Co.

"Yes, it's true," Scott replied.

The old soldier went silent for a few moments.

"Then he just broke down," Scott recalled. "He cried and he cried and he cried. And I'm crying on the other end. Finally, he pulled himself together and I think we must have talked for a half hour."

About what?

"Basically," Scott said, "he just thought it was the most unbelievable thing he'd ever heard of."

Unbelievable indeed. While the country prepares to celebrate Veterans Day with parades and memorial services Saturday, Worcester Wreath Co. is hard at work on its own tribute to those who served in the armed forces.

Next month, for the 15th straight year, 5,000 Worcester wreaths will be loaded aboard a tractor-trailer and hauled 750 miles to Arlington National Cemetery. There, starting at noon on December 14, 2006, a small army of volunteers will line up, take the wreaths one by one and gently lay them against the small white crosses.

And this year, there's more. On the same day at the same time, a half-dozen Worcester wreaths -- one bearing the flag of each military branch and one with the POW/MIA flag -- will be laid in each of 230 veterans cemeteries and monuments spread out over all 50 states.

It's called Wreaths Across America. And if you're wondering why a seasonal company halfway to nowhere would do such a thing, look no further than President Morrill Worcester's opening words in a video on the project's Web site:

(www.wreathsacrossamerica.org.)

"When people hear about what we do at Arlington, I am often asked if I am a veteran," Worcester says. "I am not. But I have made it my business to never forget."

The rest of the story:

http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/wr...placed-2006.htm


http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_christmas_arlington.htm


ATTENTION ON DECK

PRESENT ARMS

ORDER ARMS

S/F, BRO'S AND SISTERS

[booksbenji]

:evilgrin:

PGR IS PROVIDING ESCORT FROM MA TO DC!!!

:yes:

[booksbenji]

By Rick Hampson, USA TODAY
ARLINGTON, Va. — The rows of gravestones stretched out before him like time itself. But when John Lechler saw the date on one particular tombstone, he knew where to lay his wreath. And for a moment, Army Air Corps 2nd Lt. Gordon H. Sterling Jr., who died on Dec. 7, 1941, lived again.

PHOTO GALLERY: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-12-14-wreaths-cover_x.htm

The balsam fir wreath was from Maine — made by hand, decorated by hand, wrapped, boxed and loaded on a truck by hand, then driven 750 miles to Arlington National Cemetery.

This is the miracle of Arlington. "When you first look at that sea of stones, you don't get the impression of individuality," says Tom Sherlock, the cemetery historian. "But if you stop for just a moment and look at the name on the stone, in that moment they're thought of again, and they live again."

Lechler was one of about 600 volunteers at the cemetery Thursday for what has become a new holiday tradition: placing Christmas wreaths — supplied by a Maine businessman who never got over his first sight of the cemetery — on more than 5,000 veterans' graves.

"It's great that we came together to show our gratitude, considering how tough it is for everybody with this war going on," says Lechler, 42, an Ashburn, Va., resident who runs a sports training business and who never served in the military.

Every December for the past 15 years, Morrill Worcester, owner of one of the world's largest holiday wreath companies, has taken time in the midst of his busiest season to haul a truckload of wreaths to Arlington from his small Downeast Maine town of Harrington.

For years, he and a small band of volunteers laid the wreaths in virtual obscurity. But in the last 12 months that has changed, thanks to a dusting of snow last year at the cemetery, an evocative photograph, a sentimental poem and a chain e-mail. And this year, Worcester went national. A new program, "Wreaths Across America," shipped a total of about 1,300 wreaths to more than 200 national cemeteries and vets' memorials in all 50 states.

Worcester, 56, says he wants to help Americans remember and honor deceased military veterans, particularly at Christmas, when they're missed most. On the Wreaths Across America website, he makes this comment: "When people hear about what we're doing, they want to know if I'm a veteran. I'm not. But I make it my business never to forget."

On Thursday he looked at the crowd of volunteers — five times as many as last year's — and said, "I didn't realize there were this many people that felt like I do."

This year, Worcester's wreaths got to Arlington in a red, white and blue semi-trailer that followed U.S. Highway 1, escorted by a military veterans motorcycle group. In some towns, flag-waving crowds turned out to welcome the convoy as it passed through.

The wreaths were placed in a hilly, wooded section of the cemetery that has the graves of forgotten doughboys and GIs, as well as those of astronaut moonwalkers, Dr. Walter Reed and the general at Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge who told the Nazi commander demanding his surrender "Nuts."

"We want to honor the veterans, and we do it with the products we make ourselves," says Worcester's wife, Karen. "We're like the Little Drummer Boy. He had his drum. We have our wreaths."


Source: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-12-14-wreaths-cover_x.htm

:thumbup:

[candi]

Brings tears to my eyes.

[booksbenji]

via http://www.patriotguard.org/Home/tabid/53/Default.aspx

:thumbup: