Wreaths Across America Day 2025 provides community opportunity to honor fallen veterans

On Dec. 13, 2025, the CGSC Foundation along with dozens of other volunteers and groups honored veterans at the Fort Leavenworth National Cemetery with wreaths of remembrance as part of national Wreaths Across America (WAA) Day.

The Wreaths Across America mission is to remember the fallen, honor those who serve and teach the next generation the value of freedom.

The Fort Leavenworth National Cemetery Wreaths Across America (WAA) tradition, the morning began with the arrival of the wreaths in Walmart trucks escorted by VFW riders and other volunteers. Walmart provides transportation for Wreaths Across America each year. After the wreaths were unloaded and positioned on the edges of the sections of the cemetery, Karly Gadell, the WAA site coordinator for the Fort Leavenworth National Cemetery, and Col. (Ret.) Mark Morgan, led a ceremony at the flagpole with a flag detail manned by Leavenworth High School junior ROTC cadets. Two additional cadets sang the national anthem. Memorial flags for each service were posted by uniformed members of each of the services, followed by a rendition of “Amazing Grace” by Amy Bell and playing of taps by Seth Madden from the Atchison Funeral Honors Team. Attendees were then invited to place the wreaths on veteran graves.

More than 4,500 wreaths were placed this year in selected of the cemetery.

“We’d love to see all 22,000 graves in the Fort Leavenworth National Cemetery honored,” said CGSC Foundation President/CEO Lora Morgan, “but until that day we’ll keep working as part of this community to honor as many as we can. As one of the WAA sponsor groups we’ll start immediately to get wreath sponsorships for next year.”

The CGSC Foundation is one of many sponsor groups for the Fort Leavenworth National Cemetery that works to support this mission. Thanks go to everyone that sponsored a wreath through the CGSC Foundation.

The 2026 campaign begins now. WAA Day 2026 is set for Dec. 19, 2026. Click the link below to sponsor a wreath and help us get a head start on WAA Day 2026! As part of this effort for next year, WAA headquarters will match all wreaths sponsored through the CGSC Foundation or any other sponsorship group from Dec. 13-31, 2025.

If you missed the opportunity to place wreaths on WAA day, you can still help honor veterans by helping pick up all the wreaths on Jan. 17, 2026 from 10 a.m. – 12 p.m.

For more photos, see the CGSC Foundation Flickr album

To sponsor a wreath visit the CGSC Foundation’s WAA website https://www.wreathsacrossamerica.org/KS0101P or click the button below.

Wreaths Across America is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded to continue and expand the annual wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery begun by Maine businessman Morrill Worcester in 1992. The organization’s mission – Remember, Honor, Teach – is carried out in part each year by coordinating wreath-laying ceremonies in December at Arlington, as well as at thousands of veterans’ cemeteries and other locations in all 50 states and beyond.

The Fort Leavenworth National Cemetery was established in 1862 as one of 14 national cemeteries at that time. Today the cemetery has more than 23,000 graves of veterans representing every conflict since 1812. Notable veterans buried at Fort Leavenworth include Captain James Allen, 1st U.S. Dragoons, who died in August 1846. Allen’s is the oldest known military grave in the cemetery. Also, the remains of Brigadier General Leavenworth, the fort’s namesake, were disinterred from Woodland Cemetery in Delhi, N.Y., and reinterred in the national cemetery on Memorial Day in 1902. Nine Medal of Honor recipients are also buried there, including Capt. Thomas W. Custer, brother of Lt. Col. George Custer. Thomas received the Medal of Honor twice while serving in the U.S. Army, Company B, 6th Michigan Cavalry; first for capturing the flag at Namozine Church, Virginia, on May 3, 1865, and second for actions at Sailor’s Creek, Virginia, April 1865. Custer died in 1876.