Rochelle Roach’s emotions overwhelmed her. “It's very emotional,” she said as she put her hands over her teary eyes. “You just don't realize it until you do it.” She tried to say more, but the words were not coming.
Roach had just laid a flower at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on Sunday, May 25, 2025, as part of the fourth Flowers of Remembrance Day, which allows visitors the rare opportunity to walk across the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier plaza and lay a flower at the gravesite of the Unknowns. The event pays homage to the first official Decoration Day, known today as Memorial Day.
Roach brought her son Mason from Michigan to Washington, D.C., for his 21st birthday. Laying a flower at the Tomb was a new experience for him. “It warmed my heart,” he said.
Roach and her son were not the only participants who felt the impact of laying a flower. Lisa Klein, who placed a flower with her husband Dan, got choked up as she spoke about the experience. “I felt the loneliness of the Unknown soldiers,” she said, "No one knows who they are, so they're not recognized.” She did not realize that by laying the flower and feeling that connection, she was recognizing the Unknowns nonetheless.
Chris Burks brought his wife and two sons to the cemetery to lay flowers. “These soldiers don't have families to come lay flowers on their graves and visit them,” he said, “so it means a lot that, as a nation, we do that for them.” His nine-year-old son Jayden added, “I've always wanted to be here,” and echoed his father’s remarks, “We come to lay a flower and feel like a family to them.”
Steve and Kelsey Sullivan brought their seven-month-old son, Lincoln, to the cemetery. “This is his first Memorial Day weekend,” said the proud father. “It’s special being a part of something much bigger than you.” Kelsey, who placed a pink carnation at the Tomb, reflected on its symbolism. “Being a new mother and thinking about all the mothers who came before me who made the ultimate sacrifice is really special,” she said.
While the Sullivans lived around the corner from the cemetery, Kim Nguyen may have come, figuratively, the furthest to lay a flower. As a refugee from Saigon, Vietnam, in 1975, she boarded a cargo ship with her one-year-old daughter Kathy to reach the United States. “My husband was in the Army,” she said, “that’s why I love Arlington Cemetery. It’s so beautiful, it makes me cry.”
Kim brought Kathy to the cemetery to lay flowers at the Tomb and visit the grave of a service member laid to rest in Section 60, who had been killed in Jordan in 2016. Kathy kept an extra carnation from the plaza to lay at this headstone. Like so many visitors to the cemetery that Sunday, the Nguyens had come to the cemetery not only to honor someone they knew, but also to honor those who remain Unknown.
