Veterans Day Weekend Flag Placement Canceled
RIVERSIDE (CNS) – The annual mission to erect miniature American flags alongside tens of thousands of graves at Riverside National Cemetery on the weekend before Veterans Day was nixed this year because of challenges stemming from the federal government shutdown, organizers said Wednesday.
“Due to the ongoing government shutdown, our official flag placement ceremony at … the cemetery will not take place,” Honoring Our Fallen CEO Laura Herzog said. “This decision was not made lightly; it comes after careful consideration of the significant staffing reductions and various logistical challenges we are facing, including limited access to facilities, trash management and traffic control.”
Traditionally, the nonprofit’s volunteers, which typically include Boy Scout troops, Civil Air Patrol cadets, members of various unions and their families, former military personnel and others, deploy the weekend prior to Veterans Day for a four-hour walk throughout the cemetery’s 900 acres — 70 sections — to erect the small flags, routinely reaching all of the nearly 250,000 burial plots…