LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — On a mid-December day, everything is quiet at the Little Rock National Cemetery except for two men walking the grounds.
One of those men, Bubba Beason, told us about a moment when he was stationed in Afghanistan in 2014. He remembered making a phone call to his wife and she was crying.
"She said, 'I was in a Wreaths Across America ceremony today in North Little Rock and there were 187 wreaths there and I was next to a Gold Star mother and during the ceremony, the Gold Star mother leaned over and said, "Are there going to be enough wreaths to one on my son's headstone,"'" Beason said.
When he retired from the Air Force as Chief Master Sergeant and 16 tours of duty, Beason made it his new mission to make sure all headstones had wreaths.
And he was going to make sure they were real and not made of plastic.
"Putting a live wreath on a headstone means in your mind, they are still with us," he said. "They are here. What they served and did is worthy of a live wreath."
In the five years since Beason put his focus on the cemetery in Little Rock, his efforts went from 50 wreaths to 16,508. Enough to cover almost every memorial.
And the cemetery foreman Calvin Davis is ecstatic.
"You see the smile on my face, man," Davis said. "Five years later, we had over 16,000 man...it's a great thing."
But to get wreaths on headstones it's going to take volunteers. Both Bubba and Calvin invite everybody to come out to the cemetery at 11 a.m. on Saturday, December 18.
"You can walk between the rows here and see somebody that was in World War II, World War I, Korea, Vietnam," Beason said.
And when you find a marker you want, you do more than just drop a wreath.
"Everybody's got their different thing to say," Beason explained while showing us how to place a wreath. "What I say is Leonard A. Surry, it's an honor to place this wreath and thank you for saving our country and then you get down on one knee and set the wreath."
It's that moment that is most important to him.
"They say you die twice, you know. Once when you stop breathing and once when your name has never been said again. Well, this may be the only time this year that some of these people here their name's gonna be said," Beason said.
All volunteers, no matter the age or organization, should prepare to be moved. But Davis has one request.
"Just respect the ground, because to me I consider it holy ground," Davis said.
Saturday is Nation Wreaths Across America Day. If you're interested in volunteering, click here.