Volunteers would usually set out with maps and flags, and scour the 400-acre site looking for the 8,200 veterans identified among the 310,000 people buried at the cemetery, which stretches south to north from Norwood to Woodlawn, and west to east from Jerome Avenue to Webster Avenue.

Ordinarily, the mighty task would take the better part of two weekends, and more than 200 volunteers to complete. With social distancing restrictions in effect this year, a notice on Woodlawn Conservancy’s website prior to Memorial Day informed the public that the annual commemorative event would not be going ahead this year.

“After considering the guidance and safety recommendations for the prevention of COVID-19, and for the safety of our volunteers, this public event will not be held,” the notice read.

However, it did remain open to the public. Barbara Selesky of Woodlawn Cemetery said, “This year, we have signs that we have flags available at the gate for individuals to place on their loved ones’ graves, that they’re just individually doing”. Selesky added, “So, we’re not having the full blown event like we have had in the past that includes volunteers”.

On Sunday, May 24, one such individual, lifelong Norwood resident Chris Perkins, 48, paid a visit to the national landmark. Perkins said that apart from a flag presentation event in which he participated a decade ago, in the presence of then Borough President Adolfo Carrion, he had not been to the cemetery since he was a teenager, and had entered through a hole in the fence at night with friends.

Perkins arrived at the cemetery on Sunday with a flag of his own, and was given two more at the Webster Avenue entrance. He is a retired 1st Sergeant with the Army National Guard who served two tours of duty in Iraq in 2005 and 2007, a member of the 145th Maintenance Company, once based at the Kingsbridge Armory.

The unit falls under the command of the 369th Sustainment Brigade and its Infantry Brigade, heralded as the “Harlem Hell-fighters”. Perkins said he was hoping to place a flag at the grave of a Hell-fighter in honor of Memorial Day.

The first tombstone of a U.S. serviceman that Perkins located was that of Martin V. Fink of New York. The marker indicated that Fink served with the 309th Infantry Division in World War ll. Fink was born on September 11, 1890, and died on April 4, 1947.

Despite having died more than 70 years ago, Fink already had a U.S. flag placed at his grave by the time Perkins arrived.

Later, Perkins came across the grave of Dominick Sette, also of New York. A private in the U.S. Army, Sette was a medic during World War ll, who sadly died in 1947, just a year after his son Richard was born.

Perkins planted the flag in the earth, stepped back and offered a salute to Sette. He then placed a penny on the headstone as a symbolic gesture, and would repeat this process two more times.

According to the Military Times, leaving a penny at a soldier’s grave means someone visited the grave. A nickel means the person who leaves it trained at boot camp together with the deceased soldier, and a dime means the person who leaves it actually served together with the deceased soldier.

If someone leaves a quarter, it means the person who leaves it served with the deceased soldier at the time he or she was killed.

With no flags remaining, Perkins was about to leave the cemetery when he came across the grave of Jorge Luis Campos, Jr., a sailor who died on April 28, 2004. Fortunately, Campos had already been remembered by someone else, as fresh roses had been left at the grave.

As he wrapped up his cemetery tour, Perkins offered one final remark. “Today was a lot of fun – in a serious way,” he said.