On a cool but sunny Saturday morning, hundreds of military families from across the state came to the Mississippi Veteran’s Memorial Cemetery in Newton for this years’ Wreath’s Across American program. The event was sponsored by Friends of Mississippi Veterans and its annual meeting was held in conjunction with the program.
After remarks by FMV President Jack Winstead and FMV Vice President Bill Freeman, the keynote speaker, Brig. Gen. Billy M. Nabors took the podium.
Nabors, who is the Chief of Staff, Mississippi Air National Guard, spoke about special contributions that Mississippians have made in service to the country.
“It’s a privilege to be surrounded today by all those military members and veterans and folks that just love our military,” Nabors said. “But that’s what I would expect from Mississippi, a state where the percentage of its population’s citizens who are veterans of military service is higher than any other state in the nation, and that’s’ something we can be very proud of.”
In his speech, Nabors also recognized the sacrifices of the families of servicemen and women around the state.
“We must never fail to support the mothers and fathers who tearfully send their children off to war, the husbands and wives who dutifully wait for them to return and the children who don’t always understand why mom or dad had to go,” he said.
After the playing of taps, the families then laid the Christmas wreaths, provided by FMV, at the graves of their loved ones. Active service members and local Boy Scouts helped the families with the wreaths.
Louvenia Hunter traveled from Raymond to lay a wreath at the grave of her brother Joe Robinson.
Hunter said she and Joe came from a family of 16 and that he was a Vietnam War veteran.
“There 11 boys and he was the only one that went into the service,” Hunter said.
Robinson survived the war and passed away in 2014. Hunter said she tries to visit her brother’s grave as much as possible to maintain their family’s close ties.
“We were a praying family. We were a close-knit family because there were so many of us,” she said.
More than 700 veterans are now interred at the Newton Veterans Cemetery.
The Newton cemetery has participated in the annual event since it opened in 2011.
The Wreaths Across America organization was founded in 2007 by Maine businessman Morrill Worcester, in 1992. has since expanded to include more than 1,500 local fundraising groups in all 50 states, representing more than 1,000 participating locations, along with the nation’s cemetery at Arlington National Cemetery.
Since 2008, Congress has issued a proclamation officially recognizing “National Wreaths Across America Day’’ each December. Last year, 901,000 remembrance wreaths were placed in total across the country, 240,815 of which were at Arlington National Cemetery.
WAA hosts statehouse ceremonies in nearly all 50 states.
