FORT SILL, Okla. - When students in the Air Defense Artillery Advanced Leader Course were looking to do a class community service project they wanted to do something that would help veterans and their families, so the students decided to volunteer at the Fort Sill National Cemetery in Elgin, Okla.
The 33 Soldiers in ALC No. 2-10 spent Feb. 25 sprucing the grounds, cleaning headstones and gathering and burning fallen tree branches from the recent ice storm.
"They are a tremendous help," said Mario Jasso, one of five cemetery caretakers who perform grounds maintenance on the 390 acres. "What takes us two days to do, they (33 Soldiers) can do in two hours."
The ADA leadership course is for staff sergeants and promotion eligible sergeants. Its community service project is a tradition that began at the ADA schoolhouse when it was at Fort Bliss, Texas. The project is performed at the end of the five-week course as a way to give back to the community, said Sgt. 1st Class Jessica Lucero, a small group leader for the course. The students, who came from Army ADA units all over the world, graduated March 2.
"I want them to feel the honor that it is to help the veterans who came before us and who have given us what we have today," Lucero said, of the community project.
It was the second time an ALC class performed volunteer work at the Veterans Affairs cemetery, said Staff Sgt. Michael Davis, a small group leader. Previous class projects have included the Lawton-Fort Sill Veterans Center.
Students carpooled to the cemetery arriving by 8 a.m. to spend the day there. The Soldiers were supervised by five of their course instructors and worked side-by-side with the grounds crew.
Student Staff Sgt. Amy Smith, of C Battery, 3rd Battalion, 6th ADA Brigade, at Fort Sill, and a few other Soldiers spent the morning cleaning headstones. The Soldiers used pressurized-spray containers filled with a commercial cleaner that removed deposits from the marble headstones to return them to their original color. There are more than 2,500 headstones at the cemetery.
"You just walk around and spray them (headstones) from top to bottom. There's no scrubbing," Smith said.
Smith said things went well at the cemetery.
"It's going good. It was really cold and windy this morning, but now it's just windy," Smith said, around noon time.
Smith said that the volunteer work gave her personal satisfaction.
"Especially, cleaning off the graves of fallen Soldiers it makes you feel good," said Smith, who instructs Soldiers to become Patriot launching station enhanced operators and maintainers.
The air defenders also policed around the headstones for strewn floral decorations and debris.
"There's a lot of wind out here, so it blows the flowers around," Jasso said.
Many of the Soldiers spent the day clearing the grounds of the numerous broken tree limbs from the Jan. 28 ice storm.
Cemetery caretakers used chainsaws to cut down hanging tree limbs or diced the fallen branches into manageable pieces. The Soldiers then loaded the wood onto trailers and light-utility vehicles that hauled them to a burn pit.
And, the Soldiers were careful to not to get too close to an interment which was underway. The cemetery averages more than 300 burials a year, according to a DVA pamphlet.
The volunteers knocked off for lunch dining on traditional Army fare meals ready-to-eat, in the break room of the grounds-keeping facility. After lunch it was back to work.
Jasso said the Soldiers' efforts helped out the cemetery.
"We really appreciate when they come out and help," he said. "It's a big hand to us."
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