Never Forgotten Christmas Honors

Dec 1, 2018 | People

[title subtitle=”words: Marla Cantrell  Images: courtesy Christmas Honors “][/title]

On any given day, a visit to the Fort Smith National Cemetery is a holy thing, walking among the 16,300 snow-white headstones engraved with the names of those who served our country. 

It feels as if you’re standing on sacred ground.

Those emotions only intensify in December when each heastone is adorned with a Christmas wreath placed carefully by family and volunteers. If you walk among the stones in December, you can sense the gratitude of everyday people who found a tangible way to say thank-you.

The wreaths are a relatively new addition, showing up in 2009, after Philip Merry, Jr. had an epiphany. On Labor Day, he’d gone to the National Cemetery to pay respects to his late grandfather-in-law, R.N. “Pops” Donoho, who’d served as a captain in World War I. While there, he looked west toward the rock wall where some of the oldest graves rest, and it occurred to him that it looked like Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. 

At home that night, he visited Arlington’s website and saw a photo of the cemetery at Christmastime, with many of the headstones adorned with wreaths. Farther back in the photo, however, there were graves left bare. “I got a lump in my throat for those graves,” Philip says, remarking that he later learned a benevolent soul in Maine would send 5,000 fresh wreaths to Arlington every Christmas, and each year the cemetery would alternate which section received the wreaths.

The following morning, Philip learned the Fort Smith National Cemetery had 12,000 graves. He then met with Sheri Neely, Claude Legris, Lea Taylor, and Todd McCorkle. Over breakfast, they formulated a plan, agreeing with Philip that every grave must have a wreath. “It’s all or none,” they said, knowing that “none” was not an option.

“By mid-September, I had a meeting with Kelly Clark, who’s the manager of Walmart on Zero Street, and told him how many artificial wreaths we needed. He told me the wreath I wanted sold for thirteen dollars apiece, but he’d let me have them for four dollars and a dollar a bow, the price he still charges us today.

“I got with the Fort Smith Chamber of Commerce to put out the word, and the first call I got was from Johnny Smith, who owned Smith Chevrolet at the time. He wrote me a check for one thousand dollars within minutes. I started getting calls from all over town: Jim Nunnelee Real Estate, Coca-Cola, Glidewell Distributing, McDonald’s, Weldon, Williams & Lick, Baldor, USA Truck, the list goes on and on. Along with that, individuals gave, sometimes five dollars each, which would buy a wreath for a veteran, something that still happens today. It was like a house afire. By the end of October, we’d raised all the money.”

A wreath-assembly workshop was set up for early December, with the laying of the wreaths a day later. Fort Smith Schools got involved, bussing certain grades to the cemetery to help. Surrounding schools participated. Adult volunteers showed up from across the community, a good number of them veterans themselves, making the total number of volunteers one thousand. 

When the first Christmas Honors ended, John McFarland, of Baldor Electric, offered warehouse space to hold the wreaths until the following year. These wreaths typically last five years because of the care they receive. USA Trucking also helps, storing the boxes the wreaths come in during the weeks they’re on display.

Not long after, Todd McCorkle, of Movemart Relocation, who’d been at the first meeting, figured out a way to streamline the work. Once the wreaths are ready, they are placed on long poles, twenty at a time, like donuts strung on a shish kabob skewer, and taken by truck to the cemetery. 

The laying of wreaths is a reverent event, and a special time is set aside for family members to decorate the headstones before the volunteers take over. Each wreath is leaned against the headstone carefully, and often volunteers will stop to reflect as they do it. Today, more than 2,000 volunteers show up to help. 

Philip’s been asked what drew him to this project. The easy answer is that he saw a need and decided to do something about it. The more complicated answer takes us back to his brother, Tony, a hero who was wounded while serving in Vietnam, and died many years later, still carrying the burden of war. That tragedy leads to an earlier one that takes us to Tulsa in the 1960s during a sweltering summer when Philip was nine years old. His brother, George, who was twenty, had just been killed in a car crash, the news devastating Philip. 

For days, he barely left the house. And then one of his former neighbors who’d taken him to church, a grandmotherly-type named Grace Darling, showed up on his front porch. The two talked about Philip’s sorrow. After a while, Grace stood up, dusted off her hands as if she’d made a decision, and told Philip the only thing to do was to start walking.

Confused but obedient, Philip did as he was told, stopping at the curve in the street to look back. Grace urged him on. In a few more steps he found an older woman struggling to rake leaves that had been collecting there since the previous fall, and Philip stopped to help her. For the first time since George died, he felt the sun on his face, the benefit of physical work, the first signs of mending in his broken heart. 

Two hours later, he walked back home. Grace was on the porch waiting. When he told her what he’d done, she said, “You’ve just learned the biggest lesson in life. It’s very important to give and help others, but it’s especially important to help others when it’s the hard thing to do.”

Philip stops to collect himself as he tells the story. When he’s finished, he says, “I’ve never been to a funeral yet where they read off a bank statement or a balance sheet. They talk about what you did, how you helped, what you meant to those around you.”

Soon after he tells Grace’s story, he asks that this article not be about him. He makes a plea that the volunteers be lifted up, and donations of food and drinks from Sweet Bay Coffee, Glidewell Distributing, Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Walmart, Marriot Hotel, and the American Red Cross be mentioned. He hands me the names of every Christmas Honors board member.  

But the story doesn’t exist without Philip. Had he not stood at the foot of Fort Smith National Cemetery and imagined what it would look like with a wreath for every headstone, none of this would have happened. No schoolchild would be placing a wreath on the grave of a hero today. And no veteran’s family would get to see proof of this community’s appreciation for what was given in our stead.

On a recent day, I came across a social media post that said when someone who’s struggling helps you, they’re offering you more than help. They’re giving you love, a lesson Philip learned at a tender age. It’s a lesson that shows up in every headstone in the Fort Smith National Cemetery, across this wide expanse where a million stories of courage lie, adorned with wreaths of green and red, proof these heroes will never be forgotten.

 

Christmas Honors Wreath Workshop
WEDNESDAY, December 5, 9am-2pm
Fort Smith Convention Center

Christmas Honors Ceremony/Placing of the Wreaths
SATURDAY, December 8
Fort Smith National Cemetery
8am-10:30am: Families place wreaths
11-11:30am: Christmas Honors Ceremony with keynote speaker, Doug Kinslow, mayor of Greenwood
After the ceremony, volunteers can place wreaths on remaining headstones.

Wreath Pick Up and Storage
TUESDAY, January 8, 2019
Fort Smith National Cemetery & Fort Smith Convention Center
9:00am – until complete
To donate to Christmas Honors or to find out more about volunteering, visit christmashonors.org. 

Do South Magazine

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