A Holiday Tradition To Honor The Fallen

Wreath Project Doubles Number of Placements

What began 15 years ago as a fairly simple concept -- a wreathmaker in Maine hauling extras to Arlington National Cemetery to lay them on headstones -- swelled to its largest placement yesterday as more than 2,000 volunteers honored the graves of 10,000 veterans.

They placed most of the wreaths in Section 33, the final resting place for many older veterans. But it was a section of fresher graves nearby, where troops from Iraq and Afghanistan are buried, that was on the minds of many.

"When you walk to Section 60," said volunteer John Williams, whose son Jack, an infantryman, arrived in Baghdad a week ago, "you can't help but think of him."

Williams, 66, a Vietnam veteran, helps lead a nonprofit group that works with the Arlington Wreath Project. He traveled with a caravan that carried the wreaths from Maine, where the retired Coast Guard captain has also worked as a lobsterman and plumbing inspector.

At Arlington yesterday, he met various people with remarkable stories, including Mary Lou Wade.

She had flown from Florida and picked up a wreath for her brother's headstone. Inside his coffin, there wasn't much more than a uniform and a tooth. For more than 30 years, the remains of her brother, who died in Vietnam, had not been found. Last year, after sifting through remains turned over to the United States years earlier, officials identified her brother's tooth, in part by linking it to a DNA sample she provided.

"He's home," she told Williams, hugging him and pointing to her brother's grave. "He's home."

Volunteers came from across the Washington area and as far away as California. As has become custom, cemetery officials designated a specific area for them to place the wreaths, this time Section 33. Volunteers could carry individual wreaths to other sections.

Morrill Worcester, president of Worcester Wreath, started the project in 1992. His company supplies wreaths that are sold by L.L. Bean each year. He has been fond of the cemetery since visiting it as a 12-year-old when he won a trip to Washington as a Bangor Daily News paperboy.

As the Arlington Wreath Project's reputation has grown, so has the number of people eager to place wreaths on the graves of the men and women who lost their lives serving their county. Last year, the company brought 5,265 wreaths, which were distributed in 45 minutes.

Interest also has grown in the caravan that delivers the wreaths to Arlington. During the week-long trip from Maine, the caravan stopped at memorials and schools along the way, talking about the wreaths and the people they were remembering during the holidays.

At a memorial ceremony in Portland, Maine, Williams met the widow of Robert Porter. If she could tell him the location of his grave, Williams told her, "We'll see that he gets a wreath."