Scouts Help Make Memorial Day Memorable

Memorial Day is all about remembering veterans and others who have lost their lives. There’s no better place to do that than a cemetery.

A few dozen Boy and Cub Scouts make that effort all the more patriotic and inspiring by putting up U.S. flags both large and small at the Enumclaw Cemetery.

Cub Scouts go from grave to grave to see if the person was a veteran. If he or she was, the Scout places on the spot a small flag donated by the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

Meanwhile, Boy Scouts in groups of two or three place about 300 large flags on poles and put them up around the cemetery. When a serviceman dies, the family is given an American flag for the casket. Some of those flags are then donated by the families to the VFW. The name of the serviceman is on each flag. Some of the flags have only 48 stars on them, because they were donated before Alaska and Hawaii became states, Scoutmaster Tom Crews said.

Al Zarb of the VFW said the flags will be taken down Tuesday, unless they are wet. If it rains, the flags will be left up until dry.