More than 400 volunteers armed with heavy equipment and full hearts descended on Fort Logan National Cemetery to honor those buried there with a day of service.

The volunteers, licensed arborists, tree climbers, forestry workers and landscape professionals from as far away as Cheyenne, Wyoming, came with bucket trucks, stump grinders, shovels, and saws as part of Saluting Branches, the largest single-day service event in the forestry industry dedicated to honoring the sacrifices of U.S. military veterans.

Lakewood Forestry Supervisor Luke Killoran led the annual Herculean effort on Sept. 18 and has been the project site leader for the past four years.

“It’s incredibly unique and rewarding that we have such a large volunteer base of participants in the community who are willing to donate their time, services, and resources,” Killoran said. “It’s the only event in our industry where competitors set aside pride, work together as a team, and collectively give back to a cause.”

And give back they did.

Killoran estimates that 10 public municipalities and 40 private companies donated nearly $500,000 in tree and landscape service for the 214-acre facility.

Fort Logan, 4400 W Kenyon Ave, Denver, averages about 17-to-18 services daily, with about 28-to-30 on Fridays and Mondays, according to Cemetery Director Tony Thomas. So working around and respecting the privacy of grieving families for such a large operation called for the cemetery to close for a day, he said.

“Because we looked at the number of people who were volunteering, we completely shut the cemetery down for that day, which is not normal,” Thomas said. “We didn’t have any services that day because the entire cemetery was being worked on by volunteers — from the front gate all the way to the back gate. We had boom trucks. We had guys climbing the trees in their riggings. We had people on the outside pruning trees.”

Volunteers pruned, trimmed, and checked the overall health of the cemetery’s trees. They removed dead trees, ground down the remaining stumps, and planted 80 new trees.

“It’s really all about giving back to the brotherhood,” said David Merriman, president of Arborscape and a 6-year U.S. Army veteran who participated in the Fort Logan event. “During that time, (1985-1992) a lot of people were going to war, and a lot came back who weren’t the same.”

For Thomas Matthews, who served in the Air Force from 2001 to 2008, seeing tombstone dates correlated with the Sept. 11 tragedy was particularly moving. He said giving back to those veterans meant a lot to him.

Arborist Pat Slater said caring for and planting trees in the cemetery was symbolic: “Trees give life, and it’s a way of giving back.”

For the cemetery, Thomas said, the Saluting Branches project enhances visitors’ overall experience and provides much-needed assistance to the facility’s limited budget.

“For weeks, even months after the volunteers leave, visitors comment on how beautiful the cemetery looks, and it’s a noticeable change,” Thomas said, with one of the most noticeable changes being with the cemetery’s tree-lined main entry.

“They (Saluting Branches) come in and raise the canopy on the main thoroughfare coming into the cemetery,” Thomas said. “And when our guests come in, they’re like, ‘Oh, something’s changed; something looks different, and we tell them what happened.”

However, aesthetics aside, Thomas said the Saluting Branches project primarily helps the cemetery maintain a robust landscape despite exceptionally tight purse strings.

“For us, as a national cemetery, we have limited appropriated funds, and most of them are directed towards the actual burial activities that we conduct on a daily basis,” he said. “So when we get into something like tree maintenance or tree care, we don’t get that many dollars to support that kind of activity.”

While Fort Logan does have a budget for tree work, Killoran said it’s impossible to address the volume and scale of work that needs to be done annually.

“Most people think they can just plant a tree and forget it,” he said. “But trees require a lot of maintenance and they require a lot of upkeep, and in order to make sure that those trees are safe and healthy. They need arborists.”

Since its founding in 2015, the Saluting Branches event has brought together more than 15,000 arborists and tree care professionals at 100 veteran-focused sites across 48 states. The hours volunteered by participants translate into more than $15 million worth of donated services to the nation’s veteran cemeteries.

The 2025 Fort Logan Saluting Branches event is slated for Sept. 17.

Volunteers of all skill sets are needed, but registration is required. For more information, visit salutingbranches.org.​