The instructions from the colonel to the Scouts were specific: Make sure the flags stand straight, tall and proud — just like the men and women they honor.

Following a Good Turn ceremony, during which Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts from across O'ahu were given orders by Col. Wayne Shanks, U.S. Army Pacific chief of public affairs, they fanned out section by section — some with flags and others with lei — at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl.

"Tomorrow our nation will praise and remember the half a million Americans in uniform who gave their lives for our country," Shanks told the Scouts yesterday. "As your friends head off to the mall or the movies, you will remember the importance of Memorial Day."

Tag teaming it were Alex Banos, an 8-year-old Cub Scout and Donovan Harwell, a 13-year-old Boy Scout. Donovan swiftly poked the stick of a flag into the center of a grave marker while Alex placed a lei around the base of the flag.

"I try to do it right because it's weird if it's not," Donovan said. "The people here deserve to be recognized. I'm not missing any fun."

Alex was a newcomer to the effort, but nonetheless in the spirit. Armed with a handful of orchid lei a woman had asked them to bring to the cemetery, Alex said he saw Memorial Day as a time to remember these men and women.

Some 2,000 Scouts placed more than 33,000 flags and lei on the grave markers. All the lei were donated, mostly by schoolchildren, said Gene Castagnetti, director of the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. Over the last several years, it's been a bigger struggle to collect enough lei from the community, Castagnetti said.

This year, the community donated 35,857 lei, of which 2,000 were given to the Hawai'i State Veterans Cemetery in Kane'ohe. Only a fraction of the 8,000 lei needed to decorate all the veterans' graves was collected in time for today's 59th annual Mayor's Memorial Day Ceremony that begins at 8:30 a.m. at the cemetery, Castagnetti said.

"The number of lei this year is a meager response to the mayor's plea for lei," he said. "Of the 125 national cemeteries across the land, we're the only place that includes a flower tribute. "I've been in charge here for 18 years and it's been a downward trend in terms of participation each year."

The lei are donated by schools. This year most of the lei came from the Neighbor Islands, he said.

"I blame the parents and the adult educators who don't imbue our students with a sense of patriotism and history for the men and women buried here," Castagnetti said. "It makes me sad."

More than 200 Girl Scouts, including some who also decorated the chapel at the cemetery, placed flags and lei at the grave sites of 7,000 veterans at the Hawai'i State Veterans Cemetery in Kane'ohe.

Yesterday, as a special tribute to the 51 men and women who have died throughout the year but have yet to receive proper military honors, the Disabled American Veterans held a two-bell recognition ceremony, during which a bell tolled twice after each name was read.

Krystina Zabek, age 9, was busy planting flags in the soft ground. She is not a Scout, but she is a Scout's sister and wanted to pitch in.

"I think it's nice what the Scouts do," Krystina said. "We are doing this to honor the people who fought in a war."

"It's about wanting to be necessary to the people that died," said Ben Meyer, age 6. "They helped us."