As a member of the Air Drive honor guard, Airman 1st Class Connor
Zierse spends each working day at Arlington Nationwide Cemetery taking
half in veterans’ funerals.

However Thursday was completely different.

The previous Buckeye resident was one among nearly 1,200 individuals, each
troopers and civilians, on the cemetery early Thursday to participate in
the annual “flags-in” ceremony, strolling the rows to put small American flags in entrance of the greater than 260,000 graves in preparation for Memorial Day.

“I’m a really small half, however I positively really feel like I’m making a
distinction,” stated Zierse, 19, who attended Freedom Elementary in Buckeye
and joined the Air Drive proper after graduating from highschool.

This 12 months’s ceremony started at 5 a.m., because the solar peeked over the
horizon and lit the seemingly countless rows of headstones on the gently
rolling fields.

It was a navy operation with a decidedly relaxed – even
reflective – tone. Troopers sporting backpacks filled with flags started
transferring down the rows of pristine white headstones, placing a boot
in opposition to every gravestone to measure the space to the place they need to
plant the flag, then transferring on to the following one.

As they place the flags, the troopers take a second to pay tribute
and commemorate those that served earlier than them. Military Sgt. Elliot Johnston,
a Toledo, Ohio, native participating on this 12 months’s ceremony, stated the
alternative to put flags for the folks that got here earlier than him “stuffed
me with pleasure.”

Like Zierse, Johnston was taking part in his first flags-in occasion.
However Capt. Andrew Katz, taking part within the ceremony for the third time,
stated it nonetheless stays a “large honor.”

“After I place a flag, I consider the sacrifice, I consider the
bravery and the braveness that will need to have been on show, the check of
fortitude that that particular person had in that second,” stated Katz, a member
of the 4th Battalion of the Military’s Outdated Guard.

Since 1948, the flags-in ceremony has been led by the third Infantry
Regiment of the U.S. Military, or the Outdated Guard, which is the oldest
active-duty infantry unit within the Military and is predicated in close by Fort Myer,
Virginia. However members from all branches of the service, like Zierse, can
volunteer.

Arlington Nationwide
Cemetery was based in 1864 and is the ultimate resting place for
American veterans from each battle because the nation’s inception. The
cemetery conducts greater than 3,000 funerals yearly.

For Memorial Day, flags are positioned in entrance of greater than 260,000
headstones and on the backside of every column of niches in columbaria
the place urns have been positioned.

“It … creates a sea of patriotism, creates an aura, an environment,
that can be felt by the numerous people who come to go to their liked
ones or simply come to go to the ceremony this weekend,” Katz stated.

The entire course of takes about 4 hours to finish. The flags can be eliminated Tuesday, the day after Memorial Day.

Till then, Katz hopes that Individuals throughout the nation will pause
of their Memorial Day actions of barbecuing and spending time with
household and pals to recollect fallen service members.

“It’s vital that we take pleasure in these freedoms, however it’s additionally vital that we keep in mind what occurred,” Katz stated.

For Zierse, who joined the Air Drive about 9 months in the past to have
his schooling paid for and arrange “ life for my household,” flags-in
was not solely an opportunity to honor the fallen but in addition to attach with residence.
He stated that in funerals he’ll “look out for these locations to see
individuals who have been additionally from Arizona,” which connects him to the fallen.

“It’s been an enormous, large change for me, being away from household and every little thing,” Zierse stated. “However it’s been superior.”