By CASEY BISETTI

“There are too many to burn.”

That was what Representative Camille Vella-Wilkinson said at this year’s annual Warwick Memorial Day Wreath Laying Ceremony at the Warwick Veterans Park, wherein Rhode Island residents come together to honor the troops and respectfully retire old and worn-out flags.

In the quiet shade of the park, roughly half a dozen veterans and government officials, including Mayor Frank Picozzi and Speaker of the House K. Joseph Shekarchi, spoke on the value and symbolism of the flag. Admiration bled into their words as they wound their way through the flag’s history. Witness to so many hundreds of battles, from Gettysburg to Afghanistan, this symbol is treated with the utmost respect, even when worn beyond repair.

Taken from, “I Am Your Flag,” one of the poems read aloud at the ceremony:

I am your flag.

I am not a pennant, but a purpose;

not a standard, but a symbol;

not a banner but a belief.

I was conceived in justice,

fostered by the love of liberty,

and nourished by the desire for freedom.

I am not a flag, but your Flag.

Toward the end of the ceremony, tattered strips of the flag were passed around to each member of the crowd, to be placed with solidarity in the box of retiring flags. First called were the red strips, representing hardiness and valor, followed by white stripes, representing purity and innocence, and finally, blue patches, representing vigilance, perseverance, and justice.

To conclude the ceremony, former commanders Tony Rodrigues and Jim Burrows of the Disabled American Veterans Organization laid a wreath on the Rhode Island War on Terrorism Memorial as a promise to continuously remember and honor those who lost their lives fighting for our freedom.

Vella-Wilkinson has organized this event since 2011, when the city council asked her to conduct a ceremony after the annual Warwick Memorial Day Parade. Eventually, the parade was discontinued after veterans expressed discomfort with the event.

“It felt like a celebration,” she said. “It’s not a celebration. It’s a memorial.”

DAV Commander Sal Caiozzo also touched upon the often misunderstood nature of the event, and its deep importance to veterans.

“To many, Memorial Day is simply the unofficial beginning of summer. Many are unaware of its history, or the heavy burden tied to its celebration.”

The current ceremony is something intimate, something quiet, surrounded by an overarching sense of community.

According to Vella-Wilkinson, people from all over Rhode Island gave her flags for this ceremony. In the decade that she’s been in charge of this ceremony, she has become somewhat synonymous with it. She recounts tales of people approaching her in the grocery store with bags of worn-out flags ready to be retired.

Typically, the retired flags are burned in a formal ceremony at the park, but this year, the number of flags was too great to be safely burned there. Instead, they were hand-delivered to the Veterans Memorial Cemetery to be retired there.