November 11, Veterans Day, will cap this year’s first-ever flag-raising Memorial Day ceremony, as the Avenue of Flags will be taken down at Western New York National Cemetery, William Joyce says.
Filled with interment flags that had either draped a veteran’s casket or accompanied a veteran’s urn to a final resting place, the Avenue is a traditional honor each year from Memorial to Veterans Day. It was installed in 2021 and inducted with a ceremony on May 29 of this year.
As director of Genesee County’s Veterans Services, Joyce gave his annual report Tuesday to the Human Services Committee, including how the inaugural flag ceremony went.
“It was well attended by the public and so well received. I know there wasn't much advertisement, but without the advertisement, there were still a lot of people present for in-ground burials. For cremation section 10 is now closed. It's due to its capacity. Now they're moving to Section nine. It's right next to it,” Joyce said. “And to this date, there have been 1,207 burials, that's as of today. And of those, I can proudly say I assisted 18 families with arrangements for burials at the National Cemetery.”
He is the only Memorial Council member in this area with authorization to arrange burials at the National Cemetery, he said. That just “broadens my scope on what I can do for the veterans and families,” he said.
A prior budget approval to purchase uniforms for the Honor Guard was well used, he said — “they spent every bit of that” — and Guardsmen now have a cohesive, professional appearance.
“They’re all looking the way they're supposed to out there, in the same uniform,” he said.
Two weeks ago he learned that the Department of the Army will pay volunteers $50 for every service they perform on behalf of fallen veterans. They will have to go through training first to become certified to perform services at the WNY National Cemetery, he said.
His office had 1,452 contacts and provided 5,321 client services during the past year, including help to file 106 veterans’ property tax exemptions. The first veteran burial at the new cemetery was on Oct. 18, 2020, and there has been an average of four to six per weekday ever since at the site at 1254 Indian Falls Road, Corfu, he said.
Construction has been ongoing to expand the original site due to a lack of capacity. Click here to see the latest drone flyover taken in August.
The Cemetery was approved in 2021 to display the Avenue of Flags from Armed Forces Day to the Saturday after Veterans Day. Joyce said that there will be an official ceremony on Nov. 12 to dispose of any flags that aren’t “serviceable,” he said.
Each flag had been presented to the next of kin of the veteran on behalf of the President of the United States and the branch of service the veteran served. Families donate their veterans’ interment flags to fly along the Avenue to represent their service and sacrifice to the country.
The Memorial Council is responsible for the maintenance of the flags as well as collecting the donated flags.
For more information about the cemetery and related services, click HERE.
2021 File Photo of the Avenue of Flags at WNY National Cemetery in Corfu. Photo by Howard Owens.
