VETERANS GATHER FOR ANNUAL FLAG DISPOSAL CEREMONY

The color guard marched slowly to the front bearing the American flag, and as the crowd of veterans watched, those that could salute stood up and looked on with tears welling up in their eyes.

Others had to sit in wheelchairs and watch, and even though some only had stubs where their hands should be, they did their best to salute.

About 60 people gathered to watch the flag ceremony. American Legion Post 63 in Cape Girardeau conducts its annual flag disposal ceremony at the Missouri Veterans Home because there is an appreciative audience.

The ceremony involves burning flags that are worn out and are no longer serviceable. It is a way of disposing of the flag in a dignified manner, Post 63 Commander Jerry Stauber said.

"You want to dispose of the flag properly rather than trash it because of the respect people have for it," Stauber said.

Members of the community sent their old flags to be burned, but the ceremony at the Veterans Home involved the burning of a small flag. The other flags will be burned in a private ceremony later.

Tom Giles, district adjutant of the 14th American Legion District, said the ceremony is an ongoing effort by the Legion to get people to respect the American flag.

"We want to bring it back to the way it was before," Giles said. "It would be nice if people would go to the ball park and hold their hands over their hearts during the National Anthem."

Giles said some of the radical thinking in the 1960s destroyed some of the respect for the flag and for the people who fought under it.

"They quit teaching it in schools," he said. "It became out of fashion to be patriotic."

But as veterans such as Lyman Garner, who served four years in the Air Force in the Korean War, watched the ceremony, patriotism was very much in vogue for him. Confined to a wheelchair, he said it was important to him to be at the ceremony.

Stauber said he had to miss his grandson's baseball game to officiate at the ceremony, but he knew what he needed to do as he helped veterans celebrate the flag's 222nd birthday.

"We take the flag seriously," Stauber said.