Do you have plans later today? You’re invited to come help place Memorial Day flags on the gravesites for our fallen heroes.
The Veterans Band of Corpus Christi and the Coastal Bend State Veterans Cemetery are extending an invitation to members of the community.
The placing of the flags at gravesites is a tradition for the cemetery since opening their doors in 2012.
Coastal Bend State Veterans Cemetery is looking for volunteers to help with a Memorial Day tradition: decorating the graves of our veterans with American flags.
"This is very important to us because this also teaches our children how important it is to honor and pay respect to our fallen heroes who sacrificed their lives for our country," said Coastal Bend State Veterans Cemetery representative Freddie Medina.
Friday afternoon at 5:30, volunteers will place about 2,500 flags which will stay on display through Memorial Day. The flags will be furnished by the cemetery.
"It takes a lot of preparation for an event like this. We have to create a plan, invite people, and tell them about the announcements," said Medina.
The national moment of remembrance is scheduled to take place Monday, May 28th at noon at the main flag pole assembly area with guest speaker retired General James Mobley.
"Not just for Memorial Day, I say we need to say thank you to them every single day," said Medina.
These flags will adorn individual gravesites at the cemetery, located at 9974 I-37 Access Road near Carbon Plant Road. The gravesite flags will be displayed through Memorial Day.
MEMORIAL DAY:
When it is: The last Monday in May. This year, it falls on May 28.In 2019, Memorial Day will be on May 27. Its original name: Decoration Day. Initially, it honored only those soldiers who’d died during the Civil War. In 1868, a veteran of the Union Army, General John A. Logan, decided to formalize a growing tradition of towns decorating veterans’ graves with flowers, by organizing a nationwide day of remembrance on May 30 (Logan also served in Congress from Illinois and in 1884, unsuccessfully ran for vice president on the Republican ticket). During World War I, the holiday’s focus expanded to honoring those lost during all U.S. wars.
