Flag retirement ceremony Saturday

An always moving ceremony will be conducted Saturday evening at the Lovell downtown veterans memorial park, as local veterans will gather to retire worn American flags.

Held annually on Flag Day, the flag retirement ceremony will be conducted by members of Robert Boyd Stewart American Legion Post 11 at 6 p.m. at the veterans park.

Post chaplain Jim Thomas, who will lead the ceremony, said the flag is a symbol of unity, something all Americans can come together to respect.

“In America, we find ourselves in a difficult situation,” Thomas wrote in a letter to the editor one year ago. “At a time when there is much tension and argument, we need to find something to bring us together, something we can all respect. I humbly suggest this item is the American flag – Old Glory.”

The Legion program is designed to honor the flag but also educate citizens about the proper way to retire a flag. In the process, the program asks attending citizens to ponder the greater meaning behind the flag.

Flags are to be retired “with dignity and respect,” Thomas said, and in order for that to happen, they must be burned and the ashes buried.

In the past, Post 11 has used programs based on the 13 stripes, representing the original 13 colonies, or the 13 folds made when a flag is presented at military funeral.

This year, however, the program will feature a historical presentation, with Thomas telling the history of the American flag – why it was important to colonial patriots and why it stayed important to Americans through the decades. He will tell how the iconic image of the raising of the flag on Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima during World War II was reenacted at the site of the World Trade Center following the attacks on 9/11, 2001.

Though members of Post 11 will not perform the stripe cutting program of past years, they will retire a tattered and torn flag in the proper manner.

After the ceremonial flag is retired, post members will retire and burn other worn flags collected by or given to Legionnaires prior to the event.

Anyone wishing to retire a flag may present it for retirement at the ceremony, give it to a member of Post 11 or take it to the flag depository just inside the front door of the Lovell Police Station prior to the event. For more information, contact Thomas at 272-4246.

“The United States of America really is a great place to live, and has been for nearly 250 years,” Thomas wrote a year ago. “A lot of men and women have dedicated and given their lives, both military and civilian, to make it or keep it that way. Come help us celebrate the symbol that says ‘America.’”