The Indiana National Guard recently held a brief ceremony at Walmart Transportation Center in Seymour to recognize the contribution drivers for Walmart Transportation make each year for Wreaths Across America Day.

This year, Wreaths Across America Day was held Dec. 16 at cemeteries across the nation, including Riverview Cemetery in Seymour.

Lt. Col. Chris Johanningsmeier, director of the Muscatatuck Urban Training Center in Butlerville, spoke briefly during the Walmart program Dec. 14 after Staff Sgt. Amanda Harris with the Indiana National Guard opened it by singing the National Anthem.

“I am here today representing the many service members who are thankful for these types of tributes and the work that Wreaths Across America and Walmart put into this to honor the people who have fallen and who have fought and given a lot of their lives to preserve America freedoms,” Johanningsmeier said.

“On a personal note, I can tell you I have had more loss in my family this year than I have ever experienced,” he said. “I’m a middle-aged man. I can tell you that it is easy to forget things when someone is gone. You go about your life. I think it is really neat that (this program) says, ‘No, we are not going to forget. Even though we may not know the person who gave their life or sacrifice, we are going to remember the cause.’”

Jason Bickham, general manager of Walmart Transportation at Seymour, said in 2022, Wreaths Across America and the national network of volunteers laid more than 2.7 million remembrance wreathes on the graves of U.S. service members in the U.S. and beyond.

“Walmart is now in its 16th year of participation and has six different convoys going on across the country,” he said. “This week, 100 Walmart drivers will be hauling 90,000 wreaths more than 40,000 miles and stopping at 42 different distribution centers on their way to national cemeteries across the United States.

“We collectively thank the military and their families for our freedom because we all know freedom isn’t free,” he said. “To quote Ronald Reagan, the 40th president of the United States, he said, ‘Freedom is never more than one generation from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected and handed on for them to do the same, or one day, we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”

Sgt. First Class Ron Duncan, also with the Indiana National Guard, wrapped up the program by playing “Taps.”