Subligna Baptist Church Honors Veterans

For the last nineteen years, the Wednesday night service before Memorial Day at Subligna Baptist Church has been one of tradition and remembrance.

Each year, Odell Anderson veteran activist and member of Subligna Baptist Church, organizes a walk to the Subligna Cemetery to place flags at the gravesites of Subligna’s veterans.

Anderson does not make the walk alone, members of the church, mostly the teenagers meet in the parking lot of the church and receive their flags and instructions.

The group then walks from the church to the Subligna Cemetery. Once in the cemetery the group says the Pledge of Allegiance and has a prayer around the flagpole and then goes to work.

They replace the flags placed from the previous year, with new flags.

The walk is solemn, the kids nor adults talk, they carry the flags in their right hand and hold them up.

Members of the Subligna community sit out on their porch watching the parade of flags.

Vietnam Veteran watches flag parade

“When I started I had 22 graves, now I have 40,” Anderson said.

Anderson who is pushing 80-years-old herself still makes the one-mile-trek to the cemetery. “It is important for the next generation to learn how to honor our veterans,” she said.