Members of Scouts BSA Troop 73 of Westfield N.J. do their part every May to help the community remember the area’s veterans who are buried in historic Fairfield Cemetery. Troop 73 is one of several local organizations whose members volunteer their time to place flags on the graves just before Memorial Day.
Troop 73’s scouts have this in their calendar every year as a special group outing. When COVID-19 distancing rules changed that, the troop was undeterred; a volunteer list was drawn up and time slots assigned for scouts and their families to each place a small number of flags. The experience was different this year, but just as powerful.
In the years after World War II the tradition of placing flags on the graves at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington D.C. became known as “Flags-In”. According to Arlington, every available soldier in the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment participates, placing flags in front of more than 228,000 headstones and at the bottom of about 7,000 niche rows.
