As Todd Raffensberger and his family walked by the graves at Arlington National Cemetery on a wet and foggy Saturday morning, they took a moment to pay special attention to one marked with the name Cole Spennati. They saw that a wreath was on the soldier’s grave, reverently placed by a volunteer.
The Raffensberger family was among 38,000 people who laid wreaths on headstones today at Arlington, according to Wreaths Across America, which each year holds the event at Arlington and at military cemeteries nationwide. Throughout the United States, some 3 million people volunteered to lay more than 2.2 million wreaths at 2,100 locations.
At Arlington, the Raffensbergers and others visited Section 60, where many who were killed in Afghanistan and Iraq are buried. While some of the visitors did not know the men and women they honored, the Raffensbergers have a connection to Spennati, who was their son’s classmate back home in Mount Union, Pennsylvania.
“The main reason we’re actually in Section 60 is for the Spennati family,” Raffensberger, an Army veteran, told the Washington Examiner. “They’re from our hometown.” Spennati, his wife Elise, and their young daughters Gina and Aila were killed in a May 2017 car crash while driving back to their home in Goose Creek, South Carolina, where Spennati served with Navy Munitions Command.
Others who laid wreaths today at Arlington came as part of a personal tradition. Caitlin Sloan, 24, and Laura Dworning, 24, of Cleveland, have participated in the event for 10 years. Originally, they came to honor David Baker, an Army soldier from their high school who was killed in Afghanistan in 2009. This year, two dozen friends and family members came along for the solemn routine, which includes saying aloud the name of each person whose gravesite is adorned.
“I just love it because it’s something so simple to just show our respects to those who served our country,” Sloan told the Washington Examiner.
Jerry Phillips, 59, of Maryland has a son in the Marines, but he made the trip for the first time this year after his company’s manager asked if anyone was interested.
“It’s very exciting to see the amount of people and everybody wanting to spread the love,” he told the Washington Examiner.
For 49-year-old Kelly Dunmeyer of Leesburg, Virginia, the event served as an important lesson for her nine-year-old daughter, Maddie.
Dunmeyer’s father, Army Capt. Robert Riddell, was awarded the Silver Star and Purple Heart for his service in Vietnam. When he died in 2014, Dunmeyer recalled his colleagues from the West Point class of 1969 came from across the country to be there with her and her family.
“I think the wreath symbolizes ‘for forever,’ and I think when you serve, it is like a forever commitment,” Dunmeyer told the Washington Examiner.
“I think it’s pretty, and I just like it,” Maddie added.
Thousands of the donated wreaths were distributed across several acres, marking each gravestone. Wreaths Across America will continue its mission next year, hoping eventually to honor the final resting place of every U.S. service member worldwide.
