Yesterday, Commander Fred de Barros, Adjutant Tim Moynihan, Legionnaire Glen Carpinello and a Son of the American Legion, Chris Maloney joined the Rye Scouts in placing over 1400 flags on veterans’ graves at Greenwood Union Cemetery. That’s right, 1400 flags!
If you participated in this activity in previous years, we distributed 200+ flags by looking for metal veterans metal makers or old flags. We were loosely organized at best.
The Scouts took the lead in organizing the flag placements this year. One of the Eagle Scouts, Mark Pelligrino had mapped all veterans’ graves at the cemetery. He and Scout leaders then organized Scouts and other volunteers to place the flags on graves in assigned sections. We estimate that over 60 volunteers among Scouts, Legionnaires and others participated in flag placement.
Volunteers were organized into teams, each consisting of 2-3 individuals assigned to specific sections of the cemetery. Many sections were further divided into groups of approximately 50 graves. Each team was provided with a set of flags, a map of their section indicating each veteran’s grave, and a list of the graves. At each grave, the team removed old flags, installed new ones, and took a photograph of the grave with the new flag for inclusion in a future database.
It was truly remarkable to witness so many people from Rye placing flags on numerous graves. The Scouts have laid the groundwork for effectively and efficiently placing flags at veterans’ graves in the future.
Rye, NY American Legion Post 128 