Honoring Fallen Veterans – We Can DO This By Craig Andresen

 

 

Honoring Fallen Veterans – We Can DO This by Craig Andresen over at The National Patriot

 

Friends and Patriots,

 

 

It is Memorial Day weekend and where we, at The National Patriot, would normally publish a story regarding our heroes, this year I am asking for your help.

 

We hear, every year around this time and sometimes around Veteran’s Day…Stories of soldier’s graves in states of disrepair. We shake our heads, say it’s awful, and wish it were not the case.

 

It doesn’t have to be the case. We can make a difference.

 

In every town and city, in communities and neighborhoods across this great nation, there are cemeteries. Within them are the final resting places of our soldiers. Men and women who either died in the service of our country or those who came home, lived and died after their service.

 

Military grave, many of them, go back to into the ages of time. Many of these heroes families have died or moved away. Those graves receive what care the groundskeepers can provide but that care is dwindling too.

Many cemeteries have faced cutbacks on grounds crews or face financial shortages which reduce the care they can provide.

 

This is where we can help but before I get into that, allow me to relate a few examples of the disrepair.

 

In some places, thieves steal the brass flower vases from veteran’s graves. In other places, the markers themselves have been damaged, vandalized or simply weathered with age.

Some cemeteries have more military graves to contend with and fewer people employed to tend them.

 

Some are overgrown with weeds or tall grass.

These are just a few of the problems but my friends and fellow Patriots…WE can handle this.

 

Here is the idea.

 

Go to your local or community cemetery and speak to the management. Tell them you want to do something for the military sites there.

Gather your Patriot friends. Contact the local Boy and Girl Scouts to look for more volunteers. If you have a local VFW, they can help find volunteers too. Local or regional motorcycle clubs are a great resource as well!! Explain the issue and how you intend to help and set a time for a group meeting.

 

Gather your volunteer’s email addresses and set up an email newsletter to better stay in contact with them!

 

Walk through the cemetery and identify the military graves and note what problems you see.

 

Read More