President Donald Trump and first lady Melania will take time during Tuesday’s State of the Union (SOTU) address to honor a California boy who has been placing miniature American flags on the graves of soldiers since 2015.
Preston Sharp, a 12-year-old from Redding, California, started placing the flags on graves to honor the service of American soldiers when he was ten, his family says. The boy was invited to sit in the gallery as first lady Melania Trump’s guest at President Trump’s first State of the Union address, according to a statement released by the White House.
“Preston Sharp was visiting his veteran grandfather’s grave in 2015 when he noticed that other local veterans were not being honored with American flags or flowers,” the White House said in its statement. “Today, Preston has organized the placement of more than 40,000 American flags and red carnations on soldiers’ graves.”
“I knew I wanted to do something, because if it wasn’t for them fighting for us then we wouldn’t be here,” the patriotic young boy told the media.
Preston has also helped raise money to assist in the upkeep of soldiers’ graves.
Press secretary Sarah Sanders noted that inviting guests to attend the SOTU is an important tradition.
Others invited by the first couple include a police officer who adopted a drug-addicted child, small business owners, first-time homeowners affected by the tax reform bill, and an Army sergeant who survived the trauma of an improvised explosive device (IED).
The Trumps will also honor the parents of two teens who were murdered in September 2016 by members of the vicious foreign gang MS-13. Parents Elizabeth Alvarado, Robert Mickens, Evelyn Rodriguez, and Freddy Cuevas will be in the gallery to memorialize their slain daughters, Nisa Mickens and Kayla Cuevas.
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