Honoring 18,000 Soldiers' Graves with an American Flag

There are a growing number of graves to mark in cemeteries across Ocean County this Memorial Day, as those who served in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam continue to age.

The job of making sure all 18,264 of those graves is marked with an American flag falls to John P. Dorrity, the director of the county’s Veterans Service Bureau, and the volunteer members of veterans’ and civic organizations like the Scouts.

“We had a 9 percent increase in the number of graves from last year,’’ he explained. Ocean has more veterans, 68,000 living within its borders than any other New Jersey county.

Many of them served in World War II. “There are only two million World War II veterans still living, compared with 20 million in 1945,’’ Dorrity said. Korean War veterans are “not far behind them and Vietnam veterans are dying prematurely,’’ he added.

Dorrity is a Vietnam vet, now helping other veterans get the services their nation promised them. For 20 years he has been involved in making sure their graves are marked with a flag, something state law requires.

“I buy the flags from the New Jersey Department of Corrections,’’ he explained. His budget of state and county funds remains at between $9,500 and $9,800 a year. The DOC makes a good quality product, delivers on time, and is “very competitive,’’ he explained. “It’s one agency helping another agency.’’

Flags in hand, a small army of veterans’ organizations, Scout groups, and others are coordinated by William Lynch of his staff to make sure they go on every grave. They fly all over the county, in cemeteries old and new, he said. “I just delivered some yesterday to St. Vladimirs in Jackson,’’ he said.

 Dorrity said his impression is that the largest “sea of flags’’ flies at the Circle of Honor at the Ocean County Memorial Park in Silverton. The staff there takes care of decorating the graves with flags supplied by Dorrity’s office.

“All the flags we put out, we get back,’’ Dorrity explained, saying between 3 and 5 tons of flags are returned every year to his office for proper disposal. That means they have to be burned or buried. “We haven’t buried any flags yet,’’ he said. Veterans’ groups do the burning

Some Ocean County veterans are buried in the Arneytown Veterans Cemetery in North Hanover in Burlington County where others are responsible for decorating their graves, he said.

Dorrity said he can only buy American flags because of his budget, which has not increased in years. Requests for service specific flags cannot be honored because of the limited funds, he said. Donations can be made  to groups like the Marine Corps League to provide those flags, he said.