Flags placed on service members' graves at Lake View Cemetery for Memorial Day
CLEVELAND (WJW) — Memorial Day weekend is here — a holiday many see as the unofficial start of summer. But the true meaning is to honor service members who paid the ultimate sacrifice for our freedoms.
There are 9,000 service members laid to rest at Lake View Cemetery, and every year, flags are placed on their graves to say thank you.
Each flag placed is a thank you — a simple but touching tribute to the service members buried at Lake View Cemetery.
'It started with President James A. Garfield, and he was the one to first declare a Memorial Day, which was then called Decoration Day,' said Lake View Cemetery President and CEO Kathy Goss.
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Goss said everyone takes great pride in this passion project to honor our heroes for Memorial Day.
That includes third-year volunteers like Bernie Wiechowski and Kathy Graven.
'It's meaningful because our dad was a veteran, and our uncles, and so I think it's very important to honor those who have served,' said volunteer Kathy Graven.
Each volunteer is given a section, map and list of service members' markers.
'You go searching around the section that you're given to find the names, and you put the flags on the grave,' said volunteer Bernie Wiechowski.
Veteran Pete Anderson, a retired Navy captain, is also volunteering at Lake View Cemetery. He said everyone should remember the true meaning of Memorial Day.
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'Those who have sacrificed and those who have made the ultimate sacrifice,' Anderson said.
This effort leads into Memorial Day on Monday, when a program is planned at 10:30 a.m. at the Garfield Memorial. The event will include a formal flag raising, wreath-laying ceremony, musical performances and more.
Placing 9,000 American flags on markers is no easy task. Goss said it wouldn't be possible without the help of all the volunteers.
'So the volunteers are awesome,' Goss said. 'They come back every year. We pretty much have a lot of the same people, and they were out here yesterday in the pouring rain and the cold and they were doing it. We got about 150 people a day in different flights, and we could not do it without them, that is for sure.'
The Memorial Day program on Monday is free. Guests are encouraged to arrive at 10 a.m. and bring a lawn chair or blanket to watch.
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Through a translation app, the man warns us not to touch anything — some might still be live. Upstairs, a single wooden desk and chair have been placed near a panoramic window facing the airstrip. I sit down, imagining General Vang Pao and CIA officers in this very spot, directing B-52 bombing runs on communist strongholds. The war — so vast, so devastating — had largely been coordinated from this small, simple room. It was almost impossible to reconcile the scale of the conflict with the modesty of this setting. We climb up to the roof. From there, the view stretches across the old airstrip and into the mountains that once shielded Long Tieng from attack. Today, the village is quiet. A few people walk slowly down the main road. Stray dogs nap in the sun. It's hard to believe that tens of thousands of people once lived here. Today, the impacts of the intense US bombing campaign on Laos are still being felt. 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