Wreaths to get escort to Arlington Hundreds expected to lay Maine evergreens on veterans’ graves

HARRINGTON – Over 10 years, the story of Morrill Worcester’s mission to place 5,000 Maine evergreen wreaths on veterans’ graves at Arlington National Cemetery every Christmas has become familiar.

After he won a trip to Washington as a 12-year-old Bangor Daily News paper boy, Worcester, now 56, never forgot the poignant sight of row after row of thousands of white markers.

In 1971, after he had founded a wreath company and ended the holiday season with 4,000 extra wreaths, Worcester drove to Washington, D.C., and with a handful of volunteers placed the greens, each decorated with a simple red bow, on the gravestones.

Every year since then, he has repeated his mission. “It is the least we can do,” he said recently. But this year his truckload of wreaths will be escorted by a convoy of Patriot Guard Riders and met by hundreds to lay the decorations at Arlington.

In addition, 2006 marks an expansion of the Arlington Wreath Project with a new national campaign called Wreaths Across America.

During the national campaign, wreath-laying ceremonies will be coordinated simultaneously at more than 200 locations in all 50 states and Puerto Rico.

At each participating location, five wreaths with flags representing each branch of America’s armed services and a sixth wreath bearing the POW-MIA flag will be placed during a wreath-laying ceremony administered with Civil Air Patrol, veterans organizations and other civic-minded groups participating.

On Wednesday Worcester explained the motivation that started the annual event 15 years ago when his company was faced with a surplus of wreaths late in the holiday season. “I was 21 years old when I started Worcester Wreath,” he said. “That is the same average age of the soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice in pursuit and defense of the freedoms we enjoy today. The way I see it, they gave me the opportunity to develop and enjoy my business, to raise my family. If our efforts raise awareness about their sacrifices and those of their families who will be without loved ones these holidays, it is the least I can do. I only wish I could decorate every grave.”

This year, a simple e-mail became an Internet phenomenon putting a spotlight on the wreath business and inspiring a reverent convoy that will accompany the truckload of Maine wreaths to the nation’s capital.

The e-mail became so prevalent that the urban legends Web site, www.snopes.com, investigated its authenticity. It showed a simple image of Worcester’s wreaths with the bright red bows resting in the snow against the white gravestones in their endless rows.

A poem under the photograph read: “Rest easy, sleep well my brothers. Know the line has held, your job is done. Rest easy, sleep well. Others have taken up where you fell. The line has held. Peace, peace, and farewell.”

The e-mail has prompted an amazing response.

When Worcester’s truck full of individually handmade wreaths pulls out of his warehouse Sunday afternoon, the truck will be surrounded by a convoy of Patriot Guard Riders. The Riders, a national organization of 63,000 motorcycle riders committed to honoring America’s veterans, will ride alongside the truck from Route 1 in Harrington to Arlington, Va.

Chapters of the PGRs will join the ride along the way, and thousands are expected to participate. When the truck arrives at Arlington, at least 500 volunteers will be on hand to help Worcester and his wife, Karen, place the wreaths.

A group of Skowhegan school children, a Civil Air Patrol unit from Maine, and hundreds of other volunteers are expected to help lay the wreaths. Not only will a large portion of the cemetery be decorated, but Worcester brings along wreaths for the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the gravesites of John and Robert Kennedy, the USS Maine memorial and the gravesite of Sen. Edmund Muskie of Maine.

According to employees at the wreath company, the truck laden with wreaths for Arlington will leave the warehouse in Harrington on Route 1 at noon, Sun. Dec. 10. The truck will take Route 1 the entire way to Freeport, according to the Patriot Guard Riders’ Web site, where it will stop overnight.

On Monday, Dec. 11, the truck will head south on Route 1 to Interstate 95 and remain on the interstate to cross into New Hampshire. The convoy will then get back on Route 1 through Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and New York. It will cross over to the Cross Bronx Expressway over the George Washington Bridge to the New Jersey turnpike south to Elizabeth, N.J., where it will pick up Route 1 again and head to Trenton for an overnight layover. On Wednesday, Dec. 13, the truck will take Route 1 through Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and on to Arlington.

The laying-of-wreaths ceremony will be held at noon in the Arlington Cemetery on Friday, Dec. 14.