LYNN HAVEN — They’d draped over caskets and flown over homes before Boy Scout Troop 300 retired 50 American flags Saturday night during a ceremony to commemorate Flag Day.
One by one, Scouts marched flags past a Knights of Columbus honor guard in full regalia to deposit the retired flags into one of two fires.
Wait, Boy Scouts are burning flags?
Absolutely not, said Assistant Scoutmaster Kevin Hall.
“Some people call it a flag-burning ceremony. It’s not,” Hall said. “It’s a flag retirement ceremony.”
The ceremony was a little early, since Flag Day is June 14 every year. Scheduling conflicts made the early ceremony necessary this year, Hall said.
Scouts take measures before any fire is set to ensure the flags are retired with dignity and respect, Hall said. The flags are methodically disassembled before they are retired, starting with the blue field and moving to the 13 stripes.
“The thought process was, ‘OK, you’re not burning a flag; you’re burning parts of a flag,’ “ Hall said.
The 50 or 60 people who attended the ceremony were even instructed they could take photographs during the ceremony, but under no circumstance should they photograph a flag in the fire, Hall said.
The flags are worn, tattered, frayed and faded when they’re gathered throughout the year from friends, neighbors, coworkers and church members, Hall said.
“I think we have instilled some patriotism in them,” Hall said of the scouts. “When they look at the flag now they see it from a different perspective.”
The Scouts returned to the site the next day to gather all the ashes. They will be buried at sea in the Gulf of Mexico, Hall said.
About Flag Day
According to the National Flag Day Foundation, a 19-year-old Wisconsin school teacher named Bernard J. Cigrand in 1885 set a small flag in the inkwell on his desk in the one-room school and assigned his students to write essays on the meaning of the flag.
He declared June 14 the flag’s birthday because the Continental Congress on that day in 1777 declared the Stars and Stripes the official flag of the United States. A year later, he published a proposal for an annual observance in honor of the flag.
By 1894, 300,000 school kids gathered in five Chicago parks to celebrate Flag Day. By 1916, Flag Day celebrations had become so prevalent President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed Flag Day an annual national event, and in 1949 President Harry Truman signed legislation designating June 14 as Flag Day.