75,000 American Flags: City of Joliet Volunteers At Abraham Lincoln

ELWOOD —For over 20 years, city of Joliet employee Greg Blaskey has made it an annual tradition to head over to the giant Abraham Lincoln Memorial Cemetery in Elwood as he and other volunteers spent their Fridays placing American flags on the grave sites of thousands and thousands of military veterans who are buried here.

On Friday, one grave at a time, the volunteers accomplished their mission, placing the flags on the graves in time for Monday's 25th annual Memorial Day Ceremony here at Abraham Lincoln which begin at 11:30 a.m.

Several fellow Joliet employees also volunteered their time to help Blaskey place the flags at the graves.

Blaskey, Joliet's former fire chief who now serves as the city's emergency management director, said he has been volunteering for over 20 years. He said it's a moving and emotion experience to participate in the flag distribution, as they remember the sacrifice and service that all of these military veterans gave for our country, including many who died while serving our country.

The city of Joliet has over 100 employees who are either active duty or former military veterans.

Even though Abraham Lincoln now has over 75,000 military veterans buried here, Blaskey said the large contingent of volunteers who show up every year makes the flag process go extremely smoothly, and it only takes them four to six hours to finish.