The Irate Nation Est. 2001

Volunteers Place 16,000 Wreaths at Arlington

By Samantha L. Quigley, American Forces Press Service
Dec 13, 2009 - 4:48:38 PM

Blackanthem Military News
A volunteer places a wreath on a grave at Arlington National Cemetery as part of the annual Arlington Wreath Project in Arlington, Va., Dec. 12, 2009. About 6,000 volunteers placed more than 16,000 wreaths in honor of the nation's fallen heroes. USO photo by Bill Auth
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Arlington Wreath Project, an unofficial national tradition, prompted about 6,000 volunteers to wake up extra early this morning to help place 16,000 wreaths on graves at Arlington National Cemetery.

"It's really nice that America still remembers our troops," said Nikki Bunting, the widow of Army Capt. Brian Bunting, who died in Afghanistan in February 2009. She visited her husband's grave with their children, 2-year-old Connor and 5-week-old Cooper.

"It's a sad sight, but it's really beautiful. It reminds us that people care," she said.

Morrill Worcester, president of Maine-based Worcester Wreath Company, started the tradition in 1992, although the seeds for the idea had been planted 30 years earlier. The cemetery's hallowed ground first impressed Worcester in 1962, when the 12-year-old Bangor [Maine] Daily News paper boy had won a paper-sponsored contest and a trip to Washington.

"It struck me and I just never forgot it," Worcester recently said about the cemetery. "It was just such a big place and the stones are all nice and straight. I saw the Tomb of the Unknown [Soldier] and the changing of the guard."

Fast forward to 1992, when Worcester discovered his company had 5,000 surplus wreaths near the end of the season. He made arrangements to place the wreaths on graves at Arlington National Cemetery.

"The first 13 or 14 years of the Arlington Wreath Project I just did it because I wanted to do it and it was kind of a private thing," Worcester said. "We didn't want any publicity or anything else. We just did it."

For more than a decade, he sponsored the Arlington Wreath Project, with the mission to "Remember, Honor, and Teach," and managed to keep it small and relatively anonymous.

That is until 2005 when an Air Force photographer happened to capture an image of the annual honor. "Things just totally changed," Worcester said.

After the photo hit the Internet and made its way around the world, the tradition grew exponentially. This year 151,000 wreaths were placed in more than 400 cemeteries across the country by 60,000 volunteers as part of Wreaths Across America Day. Individuals and companies sponsored all but 25,000 of the 151,000 wreaths              - continued -