WASHINGTON — It’s a well-known Christmas tradition for volunteers to place wreaths at the grave sites at Arlington National Cemetery, but a similar tradition that honors our fallen also takes place around Memorial Day in Arlington and 18 cemeteries across the country.
The Memorial Day Flowers Foundation is organizing its seventh year commemorating servicemen and women by holding an event where the public can place roses at grave sites and hand out flowers to families in Section 60 — where fallen service members from the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars are buried.
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Volunteers hand out flowers to family members of fallen servicemen and women at Arlington National Cemetery. (Courtesy Ryan Black)
“We gave out 10,000 roses that first year at Memorial Day, and it’s grown from there to 60,000 the next year and last year, about 140,000,” said Ramiro Penaherrera, one of the organizers behind the Memorial Day Flowers event. The foundation works with the Veterans Affairs’ National Cemetery Administration, and they’re expecting 200,000 flowers…
