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Wreathes Over America
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Wreathes Over America
Date: Dec 14, 2024
Fort Snelling National Cemetery
7601 34th Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN 55450-1105
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Wreathes Across America
I am a USAF veteran. I feel very inadequate when I go to VA events or are told thanks for your service. I spent three years at Minot AFB ND after a year at electronics tech school. I salute Vet in wheelchairs or that have lost a limb. Yea we all served but these people were actually shot at. So, when I get a chance to help Vets I do. Every year there is a great program called Wreathes Over America. With that program wreathes are laid on veterans’ graves at Ft Snelling National Cemetery by the Airport. It is usually done on a Saturday in early December. There is no signing up just show up to help. I did so this year at 11AM on December 14, 2024. I asked E and my two grandkids 4 & 7 to go with us. We spent perhaps thirty minutes total from when we parked a block from one of the semi’s with wreathes to when we were back in and on our way home. If you can’t find 30 minutes once a year to honor those that gave their lives so we could live in our great country, your priorities are all screwed up. Take the time, do the good deed. If you go next year the second Saturday in December, don’t expect a big deal and yet it is a VERY big deal. We had a bunch of high school/young college age recruits with more ladies than guys in uniform there to assist the event. We dragged boxes of wreathes from the back of a Walmart truck and put them on a long line. Our four-year-old granddaughter did it, not much of a task. Then about noon we each grabbed a few wreathes and scattered through the great Fort Snelling and laid wreathes on graves. I was absolutely amazed at what we learned. There are many religions as seen on the headstones. Some headstones have names on both sides. One side is buried the husband the other side is the wife. We saw a number of graves with simply the word infant on it, sometimes more than one. So, the four of us went back several times and placed a dozen or so wreathes on graves of people that helped make our country great. We all left with smiles and a feeling of accomplishment. We found out that our grandkids Great Grandfather on the other side, is buried at Fort Snelling Cemetery. We have his name, so we decided to search for where he is buried. Do a search on Google for Fort Snelling Cemetery. You will find it at: https://www.cem.va.gov/cems/nchp/ftsnelling.asp On that page you will find a Grave Locator link. You will then be asked which cemeteries or all Last name, first name, date of birth & date of death, Month & year. With that we found he was buried in section 18 on a map at https://www.cem.va.gov/cems/maps/FtSnelling894.asp We may need to walk a few hundred feet and look at graves but the area he is in is very do able. One last thing. On the way to the wreathes we walked past a grave that had a can of beer next to it. Our grandkids asked about it. We told them it was probably an old friend needing to share a beer and a story with a friend that never came home. It’s amazing the memories a can of beer at a gravestone can contain. There are about twenty cemeteries across MN that have the event. The website has a list and when the event is. You can also sponsor a wreath on the website, those are $17 each. At Christmas time the time of giving how about giving something back to those that gave it all. It was a great-day, and we will be back. https://www.wreathsacrossamerica.org/pages/173842/Overview/?relatedId=142322
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