Wreaths Across America Makes Annual Visit to NJ Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial

Wreaths Across America is a fine example of a huge movement that began with humble roots. Morrill Worcester was just a boy when he won a trip to Washington, DC, where his visit to Arlington National Cemetery made a lasting impression. Fast forward to 1992, when Worcester, by then the owner of Worcester Wreath Company in Harrington, Maine, found the business with a surplus of wreaths towards the end of the holiday season. After a lifetime spent appreciating the good fortune and freedoms made possible by the service of America’s military veterans, he used it as an opportunity to honor them and made arrangements to have the wreaths placed in one of the older sections of Arlington, where fewer people visited.

Soon, other people and organizations offered to assist the effort by collecting, decorating, transporting, and laying the wreaths and the annual tribute continued with little notice until 2005, when a striking photo of the headstones, adorned with wreaths and surrounded by snow, went viral. Wreaths Across America was in the spotlight and thousands of requests were received from those who wanted to help the Arlington project or create a similar one for their local cemeteries.  Worcester began sending seven wreaths to each state, one for each branch of the military and for POW/MIAs. By 2006, wreath-laying ceremonies were held simultaneously at more than 150 locations across the country and the Patriot Guard Riders volunteered to escort the wreaths heading to Arlington – and so began the annual convoy that journeys down the east coast each December.

Today, Wreaths Across America is a nationwide organization that has quickly grown year after year with the assistance of thousands of individuals, groups, businesses, and trucking and shipping companies. In 2014, the organization met its goal of placing 226,525 wreaths on each and every grave at Arlington National Ceremony. In 2017, Wreaths Across America laid over 1.5 million veterans’ wreaths at 1,433 locations in all 50 U.S. states, at sea, and abroad.

As the wreath caravan – now known as the world’s largest veterans’ parade over the course of six days – makes its ambitious trek each year, arriving in Arlington on the second or third Saturday of December, it makes stops at schools, veterans’ homes, monuments, cemeteries, and other places to remind citizens everywhere of the need to remember, honor, and teach about all that we owe to our country’s veterans and their selfless service.

One of the stops that they make each year is at the New Jersey Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial in Holmdel, NJ, whose mission, together with the adjacent museum and educational center, is to encourage and foster a thorough understanding of the Vietnam era and its political, historical, social, cultural, and military impact in the United States, and especially in New Jersey. The spectacular memorial honors every New Jersey military member who died in the Vietnam War.

On December 12, 2018, the Wreaths Across America convoy – bearing 400,000 wreaths in tractor trailers that were accompanied by SUVs, motorcycles, and a tour bus transporting state troopers, veterans, Gold Star and Blue Star family members, Morrill Worcester and his wife Karen, and a team of dedicated volunteers – stopped first at Oak Hill Academy in Lincroft, NJ for a beautifully moving assembly. Straight from the school, the parade of vehicles headed to the NJ Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial complex, just off exit 116 of the Garden State Parkway.  There, the special guests were served a delicious lunch provided by Jersey Mike’s Subs, Joe Leone’s, and Mueller’s Bakery, inside the Vietnam Era Museum & Educational Center. Immediately afterwards, the crowd walked along the paved pathway to the outdoor memorial for the formal ceremony that was open to the public. A long line of 366 memorial wreaths had been lain all around the base of the black marble wall, one for each panel that is engraved with the names of all the soldiers’ who died on that date. During the ceremony, additional wreaths were personally presented, with slow, respectful salutes by military personnel, to Gold Star families in attendance. The U.S. Army Six String Soldiers performed “God Bless America” and “Amazing Grace.”

Wreaths Across America founder Morrill Worcester always asks that volunteers placing remembrance wreaths take a moment to read aloud the name on the headstone. Karen Worcester, who serves as the Wreaths Across America Executive Director, explains, “A person dies twice: the first time when they stop breathing, and a second time when someone says their name for the last time.”

“It is a great honor to be included along the caravan stops for this truly special event,” said Sarah Taggart, Executive Director of the New Jersey Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial Foundation. “The opportunity to recognize those that made the ultimate sacrifice for us in this ceremony coincides with a holiday season where we all long for peace, while giving due respect to our history.”

For more information about Wreaths Across America, visit www.WreathsAcrossAmerica.org.