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KYSER'S SECRETARY OF THE YEAR AWARD

Honoring the flag

Flag Day celebrates a national symbol

By Crystal Tatum
Staff Reporter
crystal.tatum@newtoncitizen.com

COVINGTON — Today is Flag Day, the annual celebration of the anniversary of the adoption of the Stars and Stripes as the nation’s symbol.
According to the National Flag Day Foundation, Flag Day originated in 1885, when Wisconsin school teacher BJ Cigrand arranged for his students to observe June 14 as the birth date of the American Flag.
Flag Day was officially established by President Woodrow Wilson in 1916, but it wasn’t until 1949 that President Harry S. Truman signed an act of Congress designating June 14 of each year as Flag Day, according to www.usflag.org.
Though it’s a holiday that many Americans may not honor, Flag Day’s importance should not be underestimated, said Newborn resident Roger Sheridan, a retired Army captain and member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the Covington Elks Lodge.
“One of the problems I think we have today is that people do not recognize a lot of these things and they do not appreciate a lot of these things. The flag has been our symbol, and it’s very important, particularly to those of us who have been overseas and in combat. There’s noting finer than to see that flag flying, and we appreciate it and we pay tribute to it,” Sheridan said.
Sheridan and his fellow members of Covington Elks Lodge 1806 held a Flag Day ceremony Wednesday night at their headquarters on Crowell Road.
“One of the basic principles of the Elks is respect of the flag, so every year, we require all the Elks lodges to have a Flag Day ceremony,” Sheridan said.
In fact, the Elks is the first and only fraternal body to require formal observance of Flag Day, Exalted Ruler Jack Wheeler said.
The ceremony included the retirement of several worn flags.
According to the U.S. Flag Code, when the flag is in such condition that it is no longer a fitting emblem for display, it should be destroyed in a dignified way, preferably by burning.
“It’s a very respectful ceremony, and the flags are properly taken care of,” Sheridan said of the Elks method of burning the flags in an incinerator.
Several Elks Club members gave speeches at the ceremony, including Robert Green, a member of American Legion Post 32 in Covington, who chronicled the history of the flag.
The flag’s evolution marks the progress of the United States government, Green said.
From the time the Pilgrims landed in 1620 until 1775, the Flag of England was the country’s official flag, Green said.
Several flag designs were used, including the Pine Tree Flag and the Snake Flag, until Congress established the official flag, with 13 stars and stripes and the colors of red, white and blue, on June 14, 1777.
In 1818, Congress adopted a resolution that thereafter the flag would maintain 13 stripes and the blue field would carry one star for each of the states of the union.
From 1912 until 1959, the flag contained 48 stars.
In 1959, a star was added for Alaska and a year later, another for Hawaii.
Following Green, Sheridan spoke of the men and women who have carried the flag into battle.
Sheridan said the flag’s greatest significance “lies in the influence it has in the hearts and minds of millions of people.”
“It has waved over the unparalleled progress of a nation in developing democratic institutions, scientific and technological knowledge, education and culture. It has served as a beacon for millions of poor and oppressed refugees abroad and stands as a promise that the under-privileged will not be forgotten,” he said.
The speeches were followed by a 21-gun salute by the VFW Honor Guard and the playing of “Taps.”
Flag Day Coordinator Eloise Davis then told the history behind the song.
The story goes that in 1862, Civil War Union Army Captain Robert Ellicombe, camped with his men near Harrison’s Landing in Virginia, heard the moans of a soldier lying severely wounded in a nearby field. Ellicombe risked his life to bring the man back for medical attention, but by the time he reached Union lines, the soldier was dead. That’s when he discovered that the man was not only a Confederate soldier, but his own son, who had been studying music in the South and had enlisted in the Army without telling his father
Ellicombe asked permission to give his son a full military burial. His superiors refused to grant him use of a full military band but did allow him to have one bugler at the funeral. Ellicombe asked the bugler play a series of musical notes he had found on a piece of paper in the pocket of his son’s uniform, the haunting melody now known as “Taps.”