Holiday Tradition Extends Beyond Arlington National Cemetery

Arlington National Cemetery is the final resting place for more than 400,000 active duty service members, veterans and their families. Arlington National Cemetery conducts between 27 and 30 funeral services each week day and between 6 and 8 services on Saturday.

What began as one man’s annual ritual for veterans has become a cause whole-heartedly adopted, with honor, by the logistics industry. In 1992, Morrill Worcester, owner of Worcester Wreath Company of Harrington, Maine found himself with extra wreaths towards the end of the holidays. Having special memories of his visits to Arlington with his father, he thought to honor those buried there by placing those blazoned red bow wreaths at their graves. He was given permission to lay them in an older section of the cemetery. Morrill and many volunteers performed this ritual every year in a humble, quiet manner until 2005 when this iconic image of Arlington National Cemetery was shared on the internet. It received national attention and today has flourished into the nationally recognized non-profit organization known as “Wreaths Across America” (WAA).

You can read the complete fascinating story here.

The organization’s mission “Remember, Honor, Teach”, is carried out in part each year by coordinating wreath-laying ceremonies in December at Arlington as well as at more than 1200 veterans’ cemeteries and other locations in all 50 states and beyond – including Riverside Cemetary here in Defiance, Ohio where our headquarters is located.

Keller Logistics Group and our affiliate Keller Trucking have a special bond with WAA as for the past two years we have donated our resources (truck, fuel and driver) to be one of the thousands of trucking companies across the country that pick up and deliver these wreaths to veterans’ graves during the month of December, a privilege we will continue to honor again this year and in the years to come.

If you would like to honor a fallen military veteran with one of these memorial wreaths, you can order as many as you’d like and have them delivered to you or to the cemetery where the veteran is buried. You may also sponsor any number of wreaths to be placed on the graves of military members laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery. Please explore Wreaths Across America’s website here to review all your options and learn more about how vital this organization has become.

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