AFA Volunteers Honor the Fallen at Offutt AFB’s Cemetery

More than 50 volunteers, led by AFA’s Ak-Sar-Ben Chapter, kicked off Memorial Day weekend with the Chapter’s annual cleanup of the on-base cemetery at Offutt Air Force Base, Neb., to honor and remember those interred there and prepare for the 55th Wing’s Memorial Day Observance on May 26.

During the cleanup, volunteers clean and rinse the markers and plant a small American flag at each of 820 graves at the cemetery, many of which date back to 1897 when Offutt was the Fort Crook Army Post.

Chris Canada, the Chapter’s president and AFA’s Vice Chair of the Board for Field Operations, coordinates the annual event with the 55th Force Support Squadron’s Mortuary Affairs Office to ensure proper visibility with base leadership. Additional coordination takes place with Chapter 984 of the Air Force Sergeants Association, the Offutt First Sergeants Group, the Offutt Rising 5/6 Council, and the Hoag Squadron of the Arnold Air Society to call out for more hands to make light work of the effort.  Many participants from this quilt-work of organizations bring their children, who really enjoy helping to place the flags. 

The Memorial Day weekend tradition of cleaning up the Base Cemetery began in the 1990s when retired CMSAF #6 Jim McCoy—a former Ak-Sar-Ben Chapter President, two-term AFA National President, and two-term AFA Chairman of the Board—and his wife Kathy led a handful of volunteers to clean up the Base Cemetery to prepare for people visiting the final resting place of their loved ones.  Soon afterward the AFA Ak-Sar-Ben Chapter took up the effort as an annual activity to start off the Memorial Day weekend right.