Veterans honor fallen brethren

The 75-year-old Army veteran led the procession of four volunteers, each with a bundle of miniature American flags in their arms, around the wet Thompson Falls VFW Cemetery with a sense of purpose as they placed the flags on the graves of our nation’s veterans.

Within an hour all the flags had been place. Afterwards, Al McGuigan took a second to look back at the 155 red, white and blue flags lining the cemetery. “That looks nice,” he said.

A myriad of thoughts had ran in and out of the of the head of the master parachute jumper’s mind as he walked down the line of gravesites on the freshly-mown grass cemetery. He thought about Pearl Harbor, which as a 9-year-old was his first memory of the military. He remembers the bald-headed storekeeper getting a telegram calling him back to active duty for the U.S. Navy, but mainly he thinks of his family. An untold amount of his family members who fought for the country and are now buried. The northwest corner of the Thompson Falls cemetery carries a special meaning to him, five of his family members are buried there.

It is a sense of duty that has brought McGuigan to the cemetery for the Plains VFW post 3596 the past eight years. A sense of duty that he said was instilled in him during his 12 years in the Army. “It a honor to maintain that sense of duty,” he said.

For many of the eight years McGuigan has been placing the flags for the Plains VFW he did it alone, but last year, Al Miller and his wife Marge came to help him and the Trout Creek couple came back this year to help him. Al, 61, served in the U.S. Air Force from 1965 to 1968 during the Vietnam War. Marge’s father was in the U.S. Navy and her step father was a U.S. Coast Guardsman. She is a member of the VFW’s Ladies Auxiliary at Post 3596.

“I lost too many friends,” Miller said after finishing placing the flags. He said this was his way to remember them. He said he hopes other people will return the favor. “I can’t put a flag on my dad’s grave and I want somebody to do it for me,” he said. Millers father is a World War II veteran and is buried in California.

McGuigan, a Korean War and Vietnam veteran, said placing the flags was a way to show respect to the veterans and also a way to show that their service didn’t go unnoticed. “If not for the veterans, what freedoms would you have?” he said.

Donald Strine, who served in the Army from 1978 to 1986, and Hal Christenson, who spent over 30 years in the Navy, also joined McGuigan in placing the flags. McGuigan said it was the most that have joined him in placing the flags. “It’s gaining support,” McGuigan said. “The spirit is coming back.”

Before the five placed the flags at the cemetery, they replaced the flag at the VFW Memorial in Downtown Thompson Falls. Thompson Falls VFW Post 2896 erected the downtown memorial, but the post disbanded around the year 2000, said McGuigan.

They also placed wreaths at the memorial and cemetery. Two of the wreaths were donated by a woman, who wished to remain anonymous, to honor her father, a Korean War vet who recently passed away. The wreathes were red, white and blue and handmade.

McGuigan, was just one of 13 volunteers at the Plains Cemetery Friday morning to place 372 flags. Don Brown, of former commander of the Plains VFW Post 3596, has been coordinating the flag dispersal since 1983. He said 14 of the veterans graves date back to the Civil War.

Craig Gill, a retired Lt. Col. in the U.S. Army, and his wife Polly Gill, who spent 10 years in the U.S. Army, brought their 11-year-old and 13-year-old daughters to the Plains Cemetery. “It teaches them patriotism and respect for the soldiers who died to give them freedom,” Polly said.

Charles Oelschlager, a Navy Veteran who served from 1962 to 1965 and was a crewman aboard the USS Vulcan during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, was at the cemetery placing flags Friday. Oelschlager had spent the previous day placing 11 flags at the Dixon Cemetery.