In honor of the men and women who gave their lives in service to the United States, dozens of volunteers placed 12,000 American flags, one at each headstone, in the State Veterans Cemetery in Middletown on Saturday morning.
“I think it’s a great cause,” volunteer Robert Rodriguez said. “The Veterans have given us plenty and without their sacrifices we wouldn’t have the freedoms we have today.”
The drizzly morning could not keep Rodriguez, a father-of-two, from sharing the experience with his two sons and nieces, a first time for all of them.
“What we have came at a cost, and I think that they should kind of recognize that it’s a good thing to have service to the United States of America.”
Dozens of volunteers, many of them Veterans, take part in the community event, which happens the weekend before Veterans Day.
“It’s just a tremendous camaraderie and with the whole community,” Jack Botti with the Middlesex Veterans of Foreign Wars explained. “You’ve got the Boy Scouts, firefighters up here, police departments, air patrol.”
Botti said the time-honored tradition will live on for generations to come.
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“I have family members buried here from great uncles and aunts, all the way down, aunts and uncles, a brother-in-law, so there’s a lot of family. It just hits home and it is home.”
The flags will be removed on November 17.
