CANTON, Ga. — Lorie McDonald and her family have a long tradition of serving the United States.
"My husband and I served. Three of our five children are serving or have served. Both of our fathers served in the Marines and Air Force.”
One of her children Zane was as a U.S. Army specialist. He completed a tour in Iraq before he returned home to marry his childhood sweetheart and be with his family.
But four years ago, Zane McDonald died following a difficult battle with PTSD.
“When you lose a child, no matter the age or circumstances, there’s not anything else you can do with them. You can’t give them Christmas or birthday presents,” Lorie McDonald said. “Only thing I have left to do for Zane is to put flags out on Memorial Day.”
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Every year, the McDonald family participates in the ceremony at the Georgia National Cemetery in Canton, where Zane is buried.
But they learned the traditional Memorial Day tribute would not happen this year because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I started thinking about other people who don’t have family members. Most of the graves go untouched. I thought we could get a couple of dozen flags around his section," McDonald said.
McDonald, her daughter Charlotte and their family put out messages to the community to see if they could get flags donated for the graves.
The family expected about 50 flags. Within a matter of days, Lorie collected 3,000 flags.
“Every flag was donated, whether it was bought or money given to us. I reached out to two local places, Marietta Flag and Acworth Flag Company. Their flags are all made in the USA. Both companies were absolutely amazing," she said.
McDonald made a few trips to the cemetery to map out where the flags would go. On Sunday, more than 30 volunteers showed up to help and spread out in small groups to practice social distancing.
“It was just an amazing experience. We had so many people that were here visiting loved ones and saw what the volunteers were doing and wanted to help,” she said.
McDonald wishes she had more time to collect flags for every single grave. But she hopes that people will be inspired to find other ways to remember the fallen throughout the year.
“If this situation comes up again or even if it doesn’t, maybe people would go out and place flowers on graves. There’s a lot of things people can do. It doesn’t have to be a holiday."
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