A retired McLean county firefighter is asking for your help. He's trying to locate the graves of deceased firefighters, so he can place a flag at their graves this memorial day.
Retired firefighter Bob Wills explains, "When we go plant the flags on the stones, they step back and think, ‘boy… One of these days I’m gonna be one of these guys.’"
In the past, Bloomington's crew has found the graves through living memory and photographs.
Wills again, "We've lost those guys through death or age or they can't come out. So, 2 years ago we started using GPS units and we've been marking all the graves with the GPS units."
Wills retired from Bloomington's Fire Department in 1983. For the last several years, he's made it his mission to comb through archives, finding the names of fallen firefighters… some from as far back as the 1800's.
Wills explains, "Coming to cemetery's offices and going through the list and trying to find names, Pantagraph archives, trying to find obituaries and that."