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Honoring 9/11: Carry The Load event returns to Fort Smith National Cemetery

September 11, 2025

The Southwest Times Record

By: George “Clay” Mitchell

FORT SMITH, Ark. (The Southwest Times Record) – Volunteers will gather at Fort Smith National Cemetery on Thursday, Sept. 11, to honor fallen service members and first responders as part of Carry The Load’s National Day of Service and Remembrance.

The event, scheduled from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., will include cleaning headstones.

“We’ll get a pretty good mix of people. Some years we’ll have 20-25, and sometimes we’ll have 10. It depends on what’s happening in Fort Smith that may be a bigger draw. The first year we did this, we had about 30,” said Ron Reading, a local organizer. “Kids will come out with their parents. We had a school out one time, people volunteering with their company, and some military people as well.”

Reading is retired from the Air National Guard and from the Fort Smith fire department and is an ambassador with the Sheep Dog Impact Assistance (SDIA), which has partnered with Carry The Load for the event. The SDIA began as a group in Arkansas and has since spread nationwide.

“To me, it’s beyond words. It’s such an extreme honor for me to be able to clean those headstones, since I have friends and family who are buried out there. I get to go and visit with them,” Reading said. “Sadly, I don’t do enough of that now that I’m getting older, but I do when there’s an event. I’ll try to see everyone that I know who is out there. I know there are others like that.”

For Ron Reading, the day is deeply personal. On Sept. 11, 2001, he had just come off a 12-hour shift and was driving to his home in Paris, about an hour away from Fort Smith. He left work after 7 a.m. and didn’t have his radio on “for some reason, but the windows were down and I was enjoying the cool air.”

When he arrived home, he quickly learned what had transpired. Reading called back to Ebbing Air National Guard Base, where he just left, and learned they were arming the F-16s that were stationed there at the time with live ammunition and rockets.Ebbing ANG became one of the primary bases tasked with protecting the central U.S. airspace from St. Louis down to the Gulf of Mexico. The crews flew missions, often linking up with the base out of Houston. Sept. 11, Patriot Day, became an important day for Reading because of his dual service in the military and as a first responder.

“It’s about remembering those who sacrificed their lives on that day and since in the service of our country,” Reading said. “They gave the ultimate sacrifice, and this makes sure they are not forgotten. This is our chance to give back and help our community. The cleaning of the headstones at the National Cemetery is to make sure those names can still be seen. If you quit saying the name, they’re forgotten.”

The Fort Smith event is one of nearly 70 cemetery service projects scheduled nationwide in collaboration with the Department of Veterans Affairs, National Cemetery Administration.

Patriot Day honors the nearly 3,000 lives lost in the 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and aboard United Airlines Flight 93. It also recognizes the ongoing sacrifices made since, including the 343 New York City firefighters who died on 9/11 and the hundreds of first responders who have since died from related illnesses.

Cemetery personnel will provide the supplies needed to clean the headstones.

“Even if someone comes out for only an hour, that would be a big help to us,” Reading said. “Sometimes we can only get one section of the cemetery, but we’ll get another the next year.”

Registration as a volunteer is free at carrytheload.wpenginepowered.com.

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