As quickly as it started, it was all over. It took hundreds of volunteers less than two hours to place more than 7,200 wreaths on gravesites at Albert G. Horton Jr. Memorial Veterans Cemetery on Saturday.

But the annual wreath-laying ceremony featured thousands of meaningful moments in those two hours.

Widows, siblings, children and grandchildren wept near the graves of their loved ones, comforted with kind smiles and thoughtful words from strangers. Children volunteering with their parents scoured the rows, looking for a name that spoke to them, before they placed a wreath for a veteran they had never even met. Parents and Scout leaders instructed their charges to read carefully the name, dates and service branches on the stones and say a prayer of thanks before placing their wreath.

“Edward, thank you for your service,” mom Joey Smith said as she placed a wreath in front of the headstone of a veteran.

“Is he your friend?” asked her young son, Matthew.

“No, but he served our country,” Smith replied.

Matthew and his brother, Charles, are in Boy Scout Troop 7, Smith said. They braved a frigid morning to attend the wreath-laying.

“I’m trying to get them to see this side of life — doing things for others,” Smith said.

The Horton Wreath Society has been conducting the event every year since 2008. The society works all year long to raise money to purchase a fresh evergreen wreath, embellished with a red bow, to adorn every gravesite during the Christmas season. The number grows by the hundreds every year.

“I miss him, but I’m happy he’s here,” said Linda Cleveland, who spent a few minutes at the grave of her husband, Navy veteran David Cleveland. They were married for more than 44 years.

“It’s so peaceful here,” she added. She usually brings breakfast and a blanket when she visits the cemetery on a normal day.

A few minutes after she departed, Navy veteran Gerry Streeter was at Cleveland’s grave. He never met the veteran, but he had met Linda Cleveland on the shuttle bus from King’s Fork High School, where off-site parking was held this year for the first time.

“I feel like this is a good connection to the veterans,” Streeter said, adding that he sought out Cleveland’s grave after meeting Linda. “It’s a solemn, moving time.”

Sisters and veterans Jessica Coker and Dr. Patricia Coker-Bell visited the graves of their other sisters, Everline Coker and Gloria L. Coker Moore, both of whom also served.

“We’ve been coming out for the last three or four years,” Coker-Bell said.

Several members of the Andrews family visited the grave of Darryl Andrews Sr. to place a wreath.

“We’re all a close family,” said Darryl’s wife, Mechelle Andrews. “We still try to maintain that closeness. We come here just to let him know that we still care.”

Following the wreath-laying, a ceremony was held at the committal shelter. Navy Rear Adm. Mike Crane was the guest speaker.

He focused on the 75th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, which was Wednesday.

“Evil can still exist, and it takes those who serve to stop that tide,” he said. “Today, we’re here to honor all of our veterans no longer with us. Our veterans and the collective efforts of service have ensured our freedoms.”

Crane urged those present to help in two ways: hold the veterans and their families in prayer, and find a way to serve their country wherever possible.

“America is blessed to have people like these veterans that place service above self,” Mayor Linda T. Johnson said at the ceremony. “It truly is the greatest gift of all to give to your country.”

The ceremony also featured the placing of ceremonial wreaths for each of the branches of the military, as well as for the approximately 93,000 whose last known status is prisoner of war or missing in action.

A bugler playing “Taps,” a bagpiper playing “Amazing Grace” and a flyover by a Cessna-183, piloted by Paul Krekorian of the Civil Air Patrol, also highlighted the ceremony.