Holy Name students place flags on veterans' graves

By Margaret M. Russell
The Catholic Free Press

    Seventh-graders from Holy Name Central Catholic Junior High School took on a solemn responsibility Thursday placing new flags on the graves of veterans in St. John’s Cemetery.    
    Each year, before Memorial Day, local veterans groups pair up with Worcester schools to remove old and worn flags and replace them with new ones, according to Robert Kalagher, a member of the American Legion Main South Post 341, who was assisting the Holy Name students.
     The Main South Post and the Civil Air Patrol had 5,600 flags to distribute with the help of the students, he said. Across the cemetery the American Legion East Side Post 201 was placing flags on graves closer to Cambridge Street, Mr. Kalagher said. In that older section of the cemetery, many of the veterans are from World War I. In the back, newer sections, where the Holy Name students were, many of the veterans are from World War II, he noted.
    For the past five years Aimee Lee, a physical education and theology teacher at Holy Name, has organized a battalion of students for the task.     
    Many students eagerly volunteer to get out of class to go to the cemetery, but when they get there their mood changes, said JoAnne Ethier, who was helping Ms. Lee with the project. “They get very respectful and prideful,” Ms. Ethier said.
Quietly walking around with an armload of flags, seventh-grader Jeremy Ankrah said he was thinking about all the lives lost.
    Don Sousa said it made him pray that all “these people rest in peace.”
    Some of the graves have flag-holding medallions that tell which branch of the military the deceased person belonged to. The old flags were removed and new ones inserted.
    Students Amanda Wilbur of Auburn and Miriam Greenslit of Worcester were tasked with checking the gravestones to see if there was a notation indicating that the person was a veteran, even though there was no medallion. They would then place flags in the ground near those headstones.    
    The tattered and dirty flags that were piled on the ground would get a proper burial later. Mr. Kalaher explained that the veterans strip the flags off their poles and each year on Flag Day, June 14, hold a flag-burning ceremony at Burncoat High School.
     As David Romaniec was going from grave to grave, he stopped to read the inscriptions. “It makes you feel that everybody has a life. It hits you when they die. It’s very emotional,” he said.
    
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