With what VFW Post 308 Chaplain Donna Randle Monteleone called “the best community turnout ever,” dozens of volunteers set out from the VFW Club on Freedom Way, Thursday afternoon, May 14, to place nearly 1,200 small American flags at the graves of veterans buried in Newtown cemeteries.

Each year, as Memorial Day approaches, the local VFW purchases new flags to replace those set out the prior year, to honor departed service members, at a cost of approximately $1,500.

Prior to handing out the boxes of flags and sending volunteers on their ways, Junior Vice-Commander Walter Dolan reminded all of the proper protocol for placing flags at the gravesites.

Last year’s flags set to the left of either a headstone or footstone, or a grave marker, are indicators that a veteran is buried at a site, he said. When in doubt as to whether or not a grave is that of a veteran, said the vice-commander, “Put a flag down.”

Keeping the flags set closely to either the headstone or footstone is important, as it allows lawn care workers to mow without knocking down the flags. “Our goal,” Vice-Commander Dolan told the group, “is to take up the old flags and collect them, and put new flags down.”

A flag retirement ceremony is planned at the VFW property Friday, June 5, at 5:30 pm.

Volunteers placed flags at St Rose Cemetery, Sandy Hook Cemetery, Zoar Cemetery, Village Cemetery, Resurrection Cemetery, Lands End Cemetery, and the other smaller cemeteries in Newtown.