While black granite tombstones poked through 10 inches of snow covering the slopes of Fountain Hill Cemetery Dec. 19, and cold, clear notes from bugler George Van Doren sounded “Taps,” residents gathered to pay respects to the veterans interred there.

Pastor Sandy Birchmeier of St. Peter’s Lutheran Church provided the invocation.

During the short ceremony, representatives came forward and, one by one, placed evergreen wreathes fastened by scarlet bows on crosses representing each of the Armed Forces and including the Merchant Marine.

For the most part, veterans of each of the services performed the duty, which honored their military comrades.

Ron Frankenfield, the person in charge of Wreaths Across America at Fountain Hill Cemetery, officiated the service and read out the number of veterans representing each service who lay beneath snow on the cold hillside.

According to Frankenfield, 312 veterans are buried at Fountain Hill Cemetery.

“Each one got a wreath,” he said.

Frankenfield has conducted the service for the past five years.

Following the ceremony, volunteers took wreaths and fanned over the hillside looking for grave sites marked with small American flags denoting a veteran’s final resting place.

The frozen snow crunched under the wreath layers’ boots as they made their separate ways between impressive obelisks, ornately-carved granite tombstones, and simpler snow-covered markers of bronze invisible but for the small flags and a round, bronze Veteran’s Affairs medallion marking their places beneath the snow.

Bethlehem Detachment 284 of the Marine Corps League members Glenn Rader and Douglas Graves, both residents of Upper Macungie Township, provided the color guard. Master Gunnery Sergeant Carl Schroeder of Coopersburg commanded the flag detail.