Since 2009, every Memorial Day weekend volunteers for the Massachusetts Military Heroes Fund plant a “memorial garden” of small US flags around the Soldiers and Sailors Monument on the Boston Common. Each represents a Massachusetts life lost in military service.
The Fund was formed with the help of the late Senator Ted Kennedy and local families of those killed in September 11th attacks, to help families of soldiers who have died in the wars following those attacks. As of this year, 219 Massachusetts soldiers have been killed in these 21st century “wars on terror”.
The Memorial Day Flag Garden places these most recent losses in the context of all 37,000 Massachusetts military men and women who have died in wars from the American Revolution onwards. This year 600 volunteers planted the thousands of flags on Thursday evening. Another army of volunteers will collected the flags this evening and store them for next year’s spectacle.
Portland Flag Association 
The 2nd phot almost looks creepy. It looks like a “wall” of flags, but it isn’t. It is just the camera angle. And there is actually space to walk between those flags. That is what happens when ypu have 37,000 of them
Totally agree Hennrieta. As much as I wish to be patriotic, the flags photos are so unnatural looking that I almost want to vomit. They are scary looking.