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Veterans honored with flags at Paradise Cemetery

PARADISE — Community members of all ages gathered at the Paradise Cemetery on Saturday to place flags at the veterans’ graves in honor of Memorial Day.

Wayne Noel, commander of Disabled American Veterans chapter 106, has organized this event for the last five years and been involved years prior to that. Attendees put up both the big coffin flags and small flags at the individual graves.

“We usually prepare it a couple days in advance because you don’t want to do it first thing in the morning on Monday and then take them down in the afternoon; that’s too much work,” Noel said. “Plus when you have them out for a weekend, everyone can come out to the cemetery and look at how beautiful they are flapping in the wind.”

The Paradise Cemetery is home to 2,400 veteran graves. Each one was honored with a small American flag placed by community members on Saturday.

“We have veterans in here as far back as the Spanish American War. We’ve got three Confederate graves; we’ve got a bunch of Yankee graves,” Noel said. “We’ve got one Spanish American and I think we have a Revolutionary one that was brought from another state. We’ve got one Russian that was my great-grandfather.”

Noel said the flags are a way to remember the fallen, and the event gives the community a chance to come together and talk after what’s happened in the last year.

“When the (Camp) Fire hit, we all scattered everywhere. We still have a lot of people gone that are scattered to different states, different counties, people who haven’t been accounted for,” Noel said. “This here, today, bringing people today. People making new friends, people finding old friends. I think this is a good event … have people reflect on ones they lost in the wars and ones they just lost recently to the Camp Fire.”

Kathy Deppe was one of the many community members in attendance. She said her husband served in the military for 23 years.

“I want to honor those that have given us the freedom that we can live under today, and I am just thankful for that,” Deppe said.

https://www.chicoer.com/2019/05/25/veterans-honored-with-flags-at-paradise-cemetery/