Christine Clouse

“About 2 weeks before Christmas on Dec 11th, I looked out my window on the 3rd floor of the Harbor Park condos to look for the US flag and the VFW flag that usually fly on top of the American Legion Post 21. It’s become a habit to check the flags for the wind direction and weather conditions before I head out for the day, even in the winter, since I learned to sail when I moved downtown a couple of years ago. The weather had been terrible for a couple of days with lots of rain and heavy winds so when I looked out and didn’t see the flags posted on that Dec 11th, I didn’t think much of it. I figured there had been a tornado warning a couple of weeks before, the weather had been consistently bad for a couple of days, and although I have never NOT seen the flags posted, I figured they had been taken down to be protected from the nasty weather we were having lately. I headed out to grab a coffee. My route took me past the American Legion and I looked up to see the American flag draped across the front of the building and whipping around in the wind.

About 5 years ago I watched a youtube video called Star Spangled Banner As You’ve Never Heard It. It explains really well to the regular citizen why it’s so important that the flag never touches the ground and why the flag is so respected. My daughters and I rewatch it every 4th of July.

Secondly, one of my father’s most prized possessions was his VFW flag. He was a Vietnam veteran and never talked about the war until very late in his life. One thing he did tell me was that he was not treated well when he returned from Vietnam. He passed in Nov 2017 from complications from Agent Orange. I learned over the later years how important VFW/MIA was to him.