WREATHS ACROSS AMERICA

Wreaths Across America

By Michelle Malkin

The photo that moved the nation

The Wreaths Across America celebration was held yesterday at Arlington National Cemetery and across the country. Thousands of volunteers participated:

Every December for the past 15 years, Morrill Worcester, owner of one of the world's largest holiday wreath companies, has taken time in the midst of his busiest season to haul a truckload of wreaths to Arlington from his small Downeast Maine town of Harrington.

For years, he and a small band of volunteers laid the wreaths in virtual obscurity. But in the last 12 months that has changed, thanks to a dusting of snow last year at the cemetery, an evocative photograph, a sentimental poem and a chain e-mail. And this year, Worcester went national. A new program, "Wreaths Across America," shipped a total of about 1,300 wreaths to more than 200 national cemeteries and vets' memorials in all 50 states.

Worcester, 56, says he wants to help Americans remember and honor deceased military veterans, particularly at Christmas, when they're missed most. On the Wreaths Across America website, he makes this comment: "When people hear about what we're doing, they want to know if I'm a veteran. I'm not. But I make it my business never to forget."

On Thursday he looked at the crowd of volunteers — five times as many as last year's — and said, "I didn't realize there were this many people that felt like I do."

The Internet played a key role in spreading the word and the movement:

The tradition grew slowly. Every year there were a few more volunteers in Harrington to load the truck and a few more in Arlington to lay the wreaths. Every January there'd be a few more calls, e-mails or letters. Worcester says that apart from a newspaper story here and a broadcast report there, "it was almost a private thing."

Until December 2005.

When the day was almost over and all the wreaths had been laid, it started to snow. Around the same time, an Air Force news photographer covering the event went back for a final picture before heading back to the Pentagon.

Master Sgt. James Varhegyi had shot hundred of images that morning. In accordance with photojournalistic convention, almost all had people in them.

But this time Varhegyi took a picture that had no people, just rows of graves, decorated with bowed wreaths, on snowy ground. White, green, red — the colors of Christmas. He didn't think it was anything special.

When the Worcesters returned to Harrington, things quieted down as usual after Christmas. Except that instead of declining in January, the appreciative calls and e-mails began to increase.

Varhegyi's photo had been posted on an Air Force website, from which someone — the Worcesters don't know who — had lifted it, put it in an e-mail, and added a poem:

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 …

"Please share this with everyone on your address list," the e-mail read. "You hear too much about the bad things people do. Everyone should hear about this."

The e-mail became an Internet sensation. It spread like a virus, so far and so fast that Snopes.com, a website devoted to exploring myths and rumors, investigated and confirmed its existence.

More and more people contacted Worcester Wreath Co. with questions, thanks and requests. By February, the company was getting 30 to 40 e-mails a day. People sent checks, which were returned. Company staffers found themselves devoting more and more time to phone calls about the Arlington effort.

One night, Sherry Scott, the office manager, was working late, trying to get caught up, when the phone rang:

"It was an elderly woman from Texas. She says, 'Tell me you're the company that lays the wreaths at Arlington.' When I said we were, there was silence. Then she started crying. She says, 'My Dad's buried at Arlington.' Then I started crying."

Thank you, Mr. Worcester, for helping us not to forget.

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Pfc. Joshua Sparling: Not forgotten; Plus: Supporting the troops this season
Christmas at Arlington

JIMMY CARTER: JEW-HATER, GENOCIDE-ENABLER, LIAR

When you find a headline like that, you just gotta share it.

“Even as Islamic Hitlerites gather in Iran to deny the first Holocaust of the Jews* and to plot the second, former president Jimmy Carter tours America with a new book that describes Jews as racists and oppressors, and suggests they are also a conspiratorial mafia that intimidates “critics,” controls America’s media and war policy, and are therefore also the source of Islamic terrorism and the Arabs’ genocidal campaign to eliminate them from the map of the Middle East.

In other words, Americans beware of the Jew in your midst.”

David Horowitz takes Jimmy to the woodshed.

Read the full story.

SENATE UP FOR GRABS AGAIN?

Democratic Senator Tim Johnson of South Dakota has undergone brain surgery early this morning and already the media buzzards are circling. The reason? The Democrats have a 1-vote majority in the Senate...and if something happens to Johnson, the Republican governor of South Dakota would appoint a successor, handing control of the Senate back to the GOP. Now keep in mind, Johnson is still very much alive. Truly tasteless.

Even though nobody on the Republican side is talking about it, get ready for Democrats and the media to step up the accusation that they're thinking about it. And if Johnson should have to resign....the Democrats aren't going to go quietly. They're going to trot out the accusation that the GOP stole another election. Never underestimate the ability of the mainstream media and the Left to have absolutely no class at all.

Here's hoping Senator Johnson has a speedy recovery.

IRAN OFFICIALLY NOW A THREAT

The United States has been telling the world for what...oh about 10 years that Iran was a threat to the world because of its nuclear ambitions? And we have been ignored....and admonished...and told that we should sit down and talk to Mahmoud Whatshisface. Thanks to global Islamic appeasement, we've been made to look like the bad guy.

But now, since Iran is hosting this Holocaust forum in which they are denying the Holocaust ever took place, suddenly Iran is evil just for that reason. Germany's leader says Iran should never be allowed to have a nuclear bomb. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says the
Holocaust is a myth. Tony Blair says he is outraged beyond belief. Excuse me, but shouldn't we be worrying just a bit less about some Holocaust forum full of nutcases and more about Iran's financing and training of terrorists? How about their nuclear ambitions?

It would seem people are more worried about what Iran thinks of something that happened 60 years ago than what is going on now...which is their relentless quest for a nuclear weapon and their support for Al-Qaeda. Perhaps the world will wake up to what we've been saying for a long time now.

I wouldn't hold your breath on that one.

TROOPS SOUND OFF IN MOSUL WITH HANNITY

Sean Hannity recently visited Mosul, Iraq and had some candid conversations with the troops stationed there. The video was aired last night on Hannity & Colmes. Anyone interested in seeing just how wrong leftist politicians and media types are about soldiers, the war and all things patriotic needs to watch this video. If nothing else, this short video clip will give an insight into the motivations, feelings and opinions of most of our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. WATCH HERE (or click the image below)

Some of the issues the soldiers talked about include victory in Iraq, why soldiers enlist during wartime, the naivete of the press and politicians who want overnight success, how they feel about John Kerry’s insulting comments about their educational and vocational status and the dichotomy between saying “We support the troops” and actually supporting the troops. GREAT STUFF. I’ve been saying this all along for three years. This is certainly my experience as an Army wife.

NOW THE FLYING IMAMS WANT MONEY, WHAT A SURPRISE

Do you remember the six flying Imams at the Minneapolis Airport a few weeks ago? These clowns made a big deal of praying at the gate before boarding. They were heard making anti-American comments by Arabic speaking passengers. They adopted the same seating pattern on the airliner that the 9/11 hijackers used. They asked for seat belt extensions they neither needed nor used. These Muslim Imams did everything they could, including shouting "Allah Akbar," to draw attention to themselves and to make the passengers on that flight uneasy. Finally the Captain of the flight did exactly what he should have done. He had them removed.

I am of the firm belief that this is exactly what the Flying Imams wanted to happen. I believe that after their meeting in the Minneapolis area they went to the airport with the intention of creating a stir and with the intention of being taken off that flight before it departed. Everything played out exactly the way they wanted it to play out.

And now its time for the pay out.

We learn now that the Flying Imams want an out-of-court settlement from US Airways for their "ordeal." In other words, they want money. They have gone to the dangerous Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in Washington for help in their blackmail attempt. Remember, my friends, CAIR is not some benign, harmless Islamic organization. CAIR spokesmuslim Ibriham Hooper has spoken of his desire to see America under Islamic Law, as have other leaders in the CAIR organization. CAIR is more of an apologist for Islamic jihadists than it is an organization dedicated to improving our relationship with Muslims in America.

Now CAIR wants to participate with the Flying Imams in their attempt to extort money out of US Airways. Will US Airways cave and pay the Flying Imams a few million in hush money?

What we may see here is the beginning of a giant Muslim scam, a scam to be repeated over and over and over across this country. A way to use both our concerns over security and our idiotic penchant for political correctness to harass various American institutions while collecting no small amount of cash on the side.

It's very easy, really. Just go into some public place like an airport, restaurant or shopping mall, and then start to draw attention to yourself. Throw down a prayer rug and start banging your forehead off the floor. Speak loudly in Arabic in a hostile tone. Shout "Allah Akbar" a few times. Look threatening. Just ham it up, play on the legitimate fears of the American people, fears that someday soon some Muslim lunatic is going to walk into a restaurant or a shopping mall with a bomb. Sooner or later someone is going to call the cops, and sooner or later you're going to get kicked out of the restaurant, shopping mall, car dealership ... whatever. Then, as soon as that happens you go running to CAIR screaming something about "Islamophobia!"

Then, of course, will come the request for a meeting with the business that threw you out, and the demand for money.

Let's see how many more times this plays out.