Nine-year-old Soren Graversen saluted and paused for a moment after placing a lei on a grave Sunday at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

The third-grader at Ka polei Elementary said he took a moment to think about the person whose grave he was honoring.

“They were protecting the country from our enemies,” the Cub Scout said.

About 1,500 Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts and their supporters filled Punchbowl on Sunday for the Boy Scouts’ annual Memorial Day “Good Turn,” in which Scouts place a lei and a flag on each of the 38,000 graves at the veterans cemetery. The fresh flower lei were donated to the city over the past week.

The pre-Memorial Day event has been held annually since 1945 and is the biggest event of the year for Boy Scouts in Hawaii. It coincides with the 67th Mayor’s Memorial Day Ceremony, which will be held today at the cemetery.

Jeff Sulzbach, Scout executive and CEO for the Aloha Council, the largest Boy Scouts organization in Hawaii, said the traditional event remains popular because it imparts lessons of service and citizenship to the Scouts and corresponds with the Scouts’ oath to help others at all times and with their slogan to do a good turn daily.

Cub Scouts as young as 5, Boy Scouts and members of Venturing, a coed branch of Boy Scouts with members up to age 20, joined in the event.

Jim Horton, cemetery director, said the occasion offered Scouts the opportunity to look at the names, ages and home states on the tombstones, reflect on who the person may have been and learn something about those who went before them.

“That curiosity, that history, that connection with the veterans of our country, it goes a long way to helping them identify as an American, as a citizen of our country,” he said.

Meanwhile, the event came as the cemetery was undergoing major renovations, including the construction of a new headquarters at the cemetery entrance and a columbarium with space for an additional 6,800 niches in the former administration building’s location. Those projects are slated to be finished by summer 2017.

Horton said Punchbowl has not been accepting in-ground burials since 1991, but the new columbarium will allow the cemetery to continue accepting veterans and their families. About 55,000 are interred at the cemetery, including about 17,000 in columbarium niches.

For many the tradition was a chance to reconnect with friends while doing a good deed. Reece Kilbey, a 17-year-old Eagle Scout with Troop 164 in Mililani, said it was his ninth year volunteering.

“It’s always nice and it brings back memories,” he said.

Michael Hubbard, who brought his daughter, Anya, an 11-year-old Girl Scout, and his son, Grant, a 7-year-old Cub Scout, said he participated in the Punchbowl event about 25 years ago as an Eagle Scout after moving to Hawaii.

He said he was excited to bring his children after his son’s first year in the Cub Scouts.

“I remember the lei and how overwhelming it seemed with flags on all 30,000 (graves),” he said. “I knew as soon as they joined that we were going to volunteer for this. It was like one of my favorite things in Hawaii.”

Lizzy Kwock, an adviser with Venturing Crew 986 on the North Shore, found the experience moving and humbling. She discovered a headstone that described an unknown who had died on the USS Arizona the day Pearl Harbor was bombed.

“For that one you send up extra prayers because nobody knows he’s here,” she said. “We get a chance to bear witness to their sacrifice.”