Looking out at the 37,000 American flags freshly placed in the grass at Boston Common, retired Brig. Gen. Jack Hammond thought about the importance of honoring those who have fallen and caring for surviving veterans.

Around 800 people from all over spent their Wednesday planting the flags into the ground, which will remain in place through Memorial Day. The two-hour effort marked the largest turnout of volunteers in the annual tradition which leads to a picturesque display of the stars and stripes in front of the Soldiers and Sailors Monument.

Home Base, a veteran services organization which merged forces with Massachusetts Military Heroes Fund in April, puts on the display and will be hosting a ceremony in which the names of Massachusetts soldiers killed in action since 9/11 will be read Thursday morning at 10:30.

When asked for his thoughts on how the migrant crisis in the Bay State has affected veterans and families who have lost loved ones in battle, retired Brig. Gen. Jack Hammond said he didn’t want to “wade into what we do with migrants, documented or undocumented, and compare them to another group.”

But Hammond, the executive director of Home Base, made it clear that the country as a whole needs to step up to the plate in providing better care for veterans and families of those killed.

“There’s an old cliche that’s over used, that the price of freedom isn’t free. That’s the cost of freedom right there, 37,000 people end their lives,” Hammond told the Herald. “That’s why they’re so important to us as a nation. The day that we stop caring for veterans, we stop having an Army. The day that we stop having an Army, we stop having a country”

The 37,000 flags blowing in the wind at the Common this weekend represent each and every service member from Massachusetts who has died defending the country since the Revolutionary War.

Hammond said he is encouraged with the steps Gov. Maura Healey has taken since taking office in January 2023, including hiring the state’s first Veterans’ Services Director, John Santiago and the HERO Act which the state House passed on Wednesday.

The bill includes more than a dozen different spending and policy initiatives covering modernization of state veterans services, commitments to “inclusivity and greater representation,” and expansion of state veterans benefits.

“There’s still many bad actors out there. This is probably the most dangerous time in the world’s history since the dawn of World War II, by far,” Hammond said. “We’ve got stuff going on in Ukraine that could blow up into a new global war in Europe. We’ve got stuff going on in the Red Sea that could blow up tomorrow.”

“All of those groups, that axis, are working together against us,” he added. “They are looking for cracks in the wall. The day we stop caring for our veterans, we will see that corresponding fall in the military.”

Scott Reynolds and his wife Catherine, of Leominster, participated in the planting of the flags under the day’s intense heat in honor of their son Ross Reynolds, a Marine who died from injuries suffered when his Osprey aircraft went down in Norway in March 2022.

“It’s not just him, it’s everyone who has passed away in the military,” Scott Reynolds said. “Unfortunately he’s one of them, but it’s nice to pay tribute to all of them.”

Declan Kelly 6 helps plant flags as volunteers place more than 37,000 flags on Boston Common, representing every service member from Massachusetts who has died defending the United States. (Nancy Lane/Boston Herald)