What's Your Why? Volunteer Spotlight on Dennis Mills


Wreaths Across America is a robust network of citizens worldwide who recognize the importance of the mission to remember, honor, and teach. Volunteers are core to community-building efforts making connections to our history and values as a nation.

The Massachusetts National Cemetery at Bourne is a long-time participating cemetery with Wreaths Across America, and there you’ll find one of our Location Coordinators, Dennis Mills.

Dennis was introduced to Wreaths Across America through his involvement with the Civil Air Patrol in 2007. “At the time, the Civil Air Patrol needed senior members. My son was a member, and he asked me to join,” Dennis recalls. “That year, we had two-hundred boxes of wreaths with about sixty-thousand veterans interred at Bourne. The challenge wasn’t so much the doing on Wreath Day but rather where are we going to put two-hundred boxes of wreaths. We ended up keeping them at our squadron building on Otis Air Base. We had wreath-laying done in about 45 minutes with about twenty cadets, a half-dozen senior members, and the cadet's parents who came out to help.”

Fast forward to 2021, when twenty-five thousand veterans’ Wreaths were sponsored for the Massachusetts ceremony. “The first year, we didn’t even have a ceremony, but we’ve learned and really put it together in a great way. It’s grown, and every year, we have about four hundred people who come out for the ceremony. It’s phenomenal and a testament to this program and how people really get behind it. It's incredible when people come out of the woodwork to do what they can to help.”

Long before the Civil Air Patrol and Wreaths Across America, Dennis found a way to serve his nation in the U.S. Air Force and is retired after thirty-eight years of service. “I joined right out of high school in 1982. On my eighteenth birthday, there was no cake and ice cream; there was basic training,” Dennis chuckled. “I had only signed for four years, and when it came close to that time, I got orders to go to Germany. I wasn’t really sure, but I had mentors who said, ‘yeah, you can go back home and do whatever, but not many people get this opportunity to be in a beautiful part of West Germany for two years and get paid to be there.’ I did two years there before downsizing, and that’s when I got out. Not long after that, the Gulf War started, and I got calls from recruiters. One of them was from the Air National Guard 102nd Fighter Wing, and I said, ‘yeah, why not.’ Sometimes your career finds you. I started as a jet-engine mechanic on F-15s; when I went to Germany, it was F-16s. When I went into the Guard, I returned to my first aircraft and crossed trained as a Crew Chief.  In 2007, we transitioned into an intelligence unit, and I went away for a secret squirrel-type job in Command and Control for the air operations group. I’ve had a well-rounded career.”

Dennis credits others for the growth of the Wreaths Across America mission, and he’s always eager to share with those unaware. “I wear my ten-year pin on my watch cap, and when people see it, they ask, ‘what’s this Wreaths Across America? I say, ‘I’m glad you asked!”

At this writing, Massachusetts National Cemetery has at least seventy-thousand veterans whose final duty station is honored by Dennis and other selfless Wreaths Across America volunteers.

You can hear more from Dennis’ interview on the “What’s Your Why?” feature on Wreaths Across America Radio.