Flag Day at American Legion 1219

On June 14, 1777, a flag made of 13 stripes and 13 stars became the official banner of the new country called America. On June 14, 2026, with the help of local Scout Troop 17, some members of the American Legion, the Sons of the American Legion, the American Legion Auxiliary and the American Legion Veterans all gathered together at the Rosendale/Tillson American Legion Post 1219 to do what they do on Flag Day.

The Flag Retirement Ceremony began with a combination of veterans and scouts standing together on the green around the flagpole outside of the Legion Post located at 794 Springtown Road in Tillson. Others in attendance sat and stood around the grass to behold the annual tradition. An American flag folded into a triangle was presented by the scouts to the veterans for “disposal and inspection” before it was walked over to the fire, burning at the edge of the driveway. The first flag to be retired was honored by members of local Scout Troop 17, Jeremiah and Landon Harries, who very respectfully opened the flag and placed it perfectly over the fire while Legionnaire Sergeant-at-Arms Bob Smith supervised.

Each year on Flag Day the American Legion holds a ceremony to retire American flags that are deemed “no longer fit to serve.” The majority of the flags that were brought to the Legion Post to be burned were removed from veterans’ graves at the Rosendale Cemetery and St. Peter’s Cemetery on Memorial Day by Cub Scout Pack 17 (who also replaced new flags on the graves that day). The same Cub Scouts who helped to remove and replace the grave flags on Memorial Day returned for Flag Day to help retire all of the flags as well. These Cub Scouts, about twenty of them, all stood in line together, and when their turn was up they did as they were instructed to do and put their American flags, one bundle after another, into the fire to burn. This process repeated over and over as each kid circled back to the end of the line to wait to get another handful to put in the fire again.

Some kids bravely placed their collection of small flags on the growing fire, others smartly tossed their handful into the orange flames, some – who were overwhelmed by the fire's heat as the ceremony went on – covered their faces as they placed their flags in the direction of the fire. A troop leader manned the ceremonial blaze by continuously going around the base of the burn pile with a metal shovel to scoop up the flags that didn’t make it into the flames and repeatedly lifted up the fallen and partially burned flags into the small bonfire.

One after another the youngsters took what they were handed and continued to toss handful after handful of flags into the fire. Some of the larger flags were folded into the ceremonial triangle by the troop leaders before being handed off to the Cub Scouts to be burned. Commander Len Beaulieu said that there was “a minimum of 500 flags” between the cemeteries and the community collection bins that were burned by the young Scouts of America in the early evening hours on Sunday.

Flag Day, as a national observance, was declared by President Woodrow Wilson on May 30, 1916, and then on August 3, 1949, President Harry Truman signed it into law to make it an official and permanent holiday. It is tradition to put your American flag out to fly (if you haven’t already put it out for Memorial Day) on Flag Day, as well as for tattered flags to be respectfully retired on this holiday.

For those that don’t know, Adjutant Eric Waldheim explained that if you have an American flag that you are ready to retire you can drop it off at one of our “town halls, American Legions, [or there are] some post offices [that] will accept unserviceable flags.” As citizens of the United States of America, we should try to keep in our minds and hearts, beyond this time of year, those who have served and fallen for our nation, as well as the red, white and blue flag that represents our freedom because of them.