Over the winter break many students from Eastern Washington University (EWU) immediately headed home for the holidays, but that was not the case for a group of Cadets from the EWU Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) “Fighting Eagles” Battalion. Before heading home for the holidays the Cadets stayed in the Cheney area to support the annual Wreaths Across America event. The Cadets assisted staff members from the Washington State Veterans Cemetery at Medical Lake, WA with placing wreaths on each grave site.
EWU ROTC Cadet Melinda Leen places a wreath at the Washington State Veterans Cemetery at Medical Lake, WA.
Wreaths Across America has its beginnings back in 1992 when the Maine based Worcester Wreath company found themselves with a surplus of wreaths near the end of the holiday season. Instead of disposing of the wreaths they were able to coordinate to have the wreaths placed on graves at Arlington National Cemetery. Over the years awareness about the wreath project grew to where today Wreaths Across America is a national organization placing wreaths on the graves of fallen Soldiers at over 1,200 locations across the United States. Great job by all our EWU ROTC Cadets that participated in the Wreaths Across America event.
Back row from left: Cadets Tyler Bergman, Tyler Roylance, Megan Anderson, Megan Baker, Malisa Barrier, Front Row from left: Melinda Leen, Austin Pfennig, Nicholas Null, Liam Hewey, Andrew Norby. (Not pictured: Joseph Jordan)
I am a 1974 grad of EWSC and commissioned MSC officer from the ROTC program the same year.