An annual mission to erect miniature American flags alongside tens of thousands of graves at Riverside National Cemetery on the weekend before Veterans Day may be nixed this year due to the federal government shutdown, organizers confirmed Monday.
“Due to the ongoing shutdown, the cemetery is operating with a very reduced crew, which may impact their ability to accommodate our over 1,000 volunteers,” Garden Grove-based Honoring Our Fallen founder Laura Herzog told City News Service. “We remain hopeful that we can find a way to proceed with the flag placements.”
Traditionally, the nonprofit’s volunteers, which typically include Boy Scout troops, Civil Air Patrol cadets, members of various unions and their families, former military personnel and others, deploy the weekend prior to Veterans Day for a four-hour walk throughout the cemetery’s 900 acres — 70 sections — to erect the small flags, routinely reaching all of the nearly 250,000 burial plots.
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ National Cemetery Administration manages Riverside National Cemetery. Its staffing levels have been cut back amid the federal furloughs that started nearly a month ago amid congressional conflicts that led to the shutdown.
“We are currently in touch with the cemetery staff about the flag placement event,” Herzog told CNS. “We anticipate receiving a final decision from them on our plans around Nov. 4th.”
Details and updates will be posted at honoringourfallen.org/events/veterans-day-2025-flag-placement/.
The walks, first organized in 2012, are conducted not only on Veterans Day but also Memorial Day weekend. Both were rescinded in 2020 because of the COVID lockdowns but returned in 2021.
When they first started, volunteers were able to reach only 21,000 grave sites. In 2014, organizers were able to procure enough flags and enlist a sufficient number of people to plant the Stars & Stripes next to just about all of the final resting places of individuals interred at the cemetery.
Since then, the number of volunteers has grown significantly.
The cemetery is the third-largest of its kind in the nation.