Overview
- The federal funding lapse led multiple VA national cemeteries to cancel Veterans Day ceremonies, though cemeteries remained open for visitors and continued essential burials.
- The VA reported about 37,000 employees furloughed or unpaid, with grounds maintenance and permanent headstone placement suspended under its contingency plan.
- At Great Lakes National Cemetery in Michigan, nonprofit The Heroes Operation bought roughly 15,000–17,000 flags and drew about 250 volunteers to place them.
- In Riverside, California, more than 300 members of the Western States Regional Council of Carpenters purchased their own flags and placed about 2,400 after organizers cited staffing, facilities and traffic-control constraints.
- Local groups filled gaps elsewhere, including a Riverhead PBA-led tribute with a helicopter flyover near Calverton, community gatherings at the National Cemetery of the Alleghenies and Dallas–Fort Worth, and the cancellation of Tahoma’s student flag-placing tradition.