'Rest easy, sleep well my brothers. Know the line has held, your job is done.'

This time, Worcester and friends won't barrel down the interstate; they're taking the slow road, Route 1, so that more motorcyclists -- perhaps thousands more -- might join the caravan.

This time, the wreath-laying won't be a private affair. Instead of the 10 or 12 volunteers who had been rounded up in past years by Wayne Hanson, a retired federal law enforcement officer who lives in Springfield, at least 500 people will be ready to help lay the wreaths Dec. 14 -- and maybe many more.

There will be a busload of school kids from Skowhegan, Maine, a Civil Air Patrol unit from up that way and all manner of Washington-area volunteers, too.

They're still calling, every day. "It's the e-mail that did this," says Hanson, 62, an Army veteran of the Vietnam War. He got involved with the wreaths in 1993, when Worcester sought help from the Maine State Society, a Falls Church-based group of transplants. "I had a man call from Iraq, a civilian contractor who got his company to give him R&R so he could come back and lay a wreath."

Every year, the superintendent of the cemetery assigns the wreath brigade to a different part of the grounds. Last year, the volunteers completed their circuit of the cemetery, and this Christmas, they start all over again.

Every year, Worcester makes certain to reserve a few wreaths for the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the John and Robert Kennedy gravesites, the memorial to the USS Maine and the resting place of Sen. Edmund Muskie of Maine.

Even as his personal ritual morphs into something much larger, Worcester, 56, wants to ensure that its original purpose remains. "It's just my way to say thank you," he says. "I've got a lot to be thankful for." When he started Worcester Wreaths in 1971, he sold 500 wreaths. This year, that number will top 500,000, mostly to the Maine-based retailer L.L. Bean.

This time of year, the wreath company employs more than 600 people in Harrington, about 45 miles up the coast from Bar Harbor.

Worcester has always returned the checks that people send him. The wreath-laying is his personal statement: "This is the least we can do."

Everyone connected with the wreath project takes pains to note that it has nothing to do with politics, nothing to do with anyone's opinion about Iraq or terrorism.

"It's just a way to pay respect," Hanson says. "When I came home from Vietnam, well, it wasn't the best time to be in the military, or to be coming home. But this -- it brings tears to my eyes to see 5,000 wreaths laid out across those white government headstones. You can't think about anything but that ultimate sacrifice these people made to give us our freedom."

This year, the interest in Worcester's project has exploded to the point that he had to find some way to extend the tribute, so he has launched http://wreathsacrossamerica.org, a Web site that coordinates similar rituals at more than 200 military cemeteries around the country.

"The veterans are going to get their due," says Worcester, who never served in the military. "It's going to be quite something."

E-mail:marcfisher@washpost.com