American Flags being prepared for return to their owners
Flags that flew on patriotic holidays over the years, are being returned to those who donated them
By News Channel NebraskaBEATRICE – The work to carefully fold American Flags for a return to their owners, is being completed. Working with Gage County Veterans Service Officer Scott Bates, veterans, boy scouts and members of a local Marine Corps Leathernecks group are preparing the cloth flags for a return to their owners.
The flags, which have been flown on the grounds of the Gage County Courthouse and Veterans Memorial Park on patriotic holidays…are being replaced by all-weather flags that can withstand less-than-ideal weather.
Commander of the local American Legion Post, Gerald Lamkin…says there are just over 300 flags officials hope to return to their owners. "The Veterans Service Officer, Scott Bates is going to start returning those flags from the 23rd to the 27th of February."
Lamkin says it takes some practice to make sure the flags are folded into a triangle in the proper way. There are some cases where getting the flags returned to the owners who donated them long ago, may take more time.
"That's a great possibility. I know that there was one flag right at the top of the box that had no name on it. Scott had those coordinated and numbered...and names associated with those. Even those, trying to reach out to someone from that family, may take some time, too."
Sometimes, the cloth flags could not be flown on specific holidays during a threat of rain, because the colors could bleed. The all-weather flags provided a solution to that. Lamkin, a retired police captain and U.S. Marine Corps Veteran now in his third year as Legion Commander…said support for purchasing the new flags was gratifying.
"When the Legion took on this project, Scott Bates came to our Exec Board meeting and brought this idea up, Neal Ostermann said, yeah, we'll do this....we figured it probably would take a year to raise the $20,000 needed to replace these flags. Because of the community...the members in this community and the pride they have in this country...we did it in four months.....phenomenal."
The new American Flags got their first try-out on Veterans Day, last fall.