ST. LOUIS (AP) - Before Memorial Day, Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery in St. Louis County is typically full of Boy Scouts planting flags. The coronavirus ended that tradition for this holiday, but volunteers stepped in to lay flags to honor the thousands of veterans at the cemetery.
The effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus has changed typical Memorial Day ceremonies in Missouri and elsewhere. Some went virtual this year. Others altered plans to avoid big crowds.
At Jefferson Barracks, Army veteran Daniel Luna-Fuller decided to do something when she heard the Boy Scouts couldn't place flags. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported she created a Facebook event and recruited others to help lay as many flags as they could manage. Members of her Army unit, her family and others pitched in, placing more than 6,000 flags.
"It is important," Luna-Fuller said. "It's not like we just place flags on headstones. We were putting flags on people, and I think we were taking a moment and saying something to our brothers and sisters."
Similar tributes unfolded at other cemeteries - upholding normalcy and tradition as much as possible, while incorporating new twists, as needed.
At St. Charles Memorial Gardens, where more than 5,000 veterans are buried, gone was the 500-person picnic and memorial service that the site normally hosts. Instead, people were invited to parade through the cemetery in cars. They could even listen to a patriotic soundtrack transmitted over an FM radio station. Cemetery workers spent a week adorning each veteran grave site with a flag.
"This whole thing has made us think differently, creatively, to still find ways to honor people," said John Baue Devaney, the St. Charles Memorial Garden's director of operations.
While a 70-piece concert band normally plays music at the cemetery, the group was represented this year by just two trumpeters.
"Just the trumpets, for taps," said Jack Commerford, who has played in the After Hours Community Band for more than 30 years. "This is new for everybody."