Fort Bliss National Cemetery Memorial Day ceremony, volunteers needed

The Fort Bliss National Cemetery invites the community to show up this Memorial Day weekend for those who gave their lives for our freedom. 

The cemetery has over 40,000 headstones, with over 65,000 people buried there. 

On Friday and Saturday, they need volunteers to help places flags along the graves, expecting 500 to 1,000 people to show up on Saturday.

Francisco Gonzalez Jr., director of Fort Bliss National Cemetery, is a veteran himself, serving from 2002 to 2010.

He says especially now with America turning 250 this year, we owe even more to those who sacrificed their lives for our country, and never came back home from a war. 

"Even among our employees, majority of them are veterans themselves, they have families buried here and everything like that," says Gonzalez Jr. "It's a way to say thank you to our veterans for their sacrifice and to their families, because not only the veteran is the one serving, but the family also shares that burden with the veteran as well."

Starting at 6:30 a.m. on Friday, volunteers can help with the Avenue of Flags Placement, with 250 flags to be raised and three people needed for each one.

Volunteers can help place all the grave site flags that cover the whole cemetery Saturday morning before the ceremony at 8 a.m.

Their Memorial Day ceremony begins at 9 a.m. on Monday, and visitors must park outside of the cemetery.