Paul Monti, father of deceased Medal of Honor recipient SFC Jared Monti led a team of volunteers as they placed 56,000 American flags on graves at the Bourne National Cemetery in Massachusetts.
His efforts are the result of his frustration at being unable to place a flag on his son’s grave. The good news is, he was able to get a waiver to the policy. The bad news? It is only for Memorial day.
What the hell is wrong with this country? I am getting a bit fed up of the stories about restrictions on display of the flag; our national symbol. We really need some legislation to protect display of the flag.
I find it hard to believe that there are restrictions on displaying one’s national flag. People are asked to sacrifice their lives for their country yet they can’t even honor their country and those who have served and fallen by displaying the national flag on home turf? That’s just plain weird. Where’s the logic and common sense in that?
What kind of bizarre, twisted, “logic” could there possibly be for prohibiting the display of the flag on the grave of a fallen soldier????
This Cemetery has a rule that they do not allow any items left at the site. If people leave flowers, or small mementos, they are removed after 24 hours. They say it is because of the landscaping.
the flags were placed yesterday, and on June 4th/5th, volunteers will be removing them.
Hopefully, this will become a yearly tradition.
Eric
All the flags and and any other items will be gathered prior to the mowing of grass. The gravestones in the Massachusetts National Military Cemetery in Bourne on Cape Cod are flush with the ground for ease of maintenance, specifically mowing. Any object left on the ground and not gathered up may be shredded by the mower, endangering the mower operator and anyone nearby. How many volunteers will there be for the removal of the flags? All families are told of this policy before burials.
BTW, one of my parents is buried in this cemetery.
As a Boy Scout many years ago, on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, I along with other Boy Scouts placed flags on markers/flag holders placed in Weymouth cemeteries by local veteran’s organizations. the flag holders enable the flags to survive until several weeks. My favorite was the grave of a single American Revolutionary War veteran in an above ground vault at around 378 Middle Street (opposite Prince Street) which was surrounded by an auto salvage yard. Where junk automobiles used to be is now marked off by an iron fence. We used to walk by the junked cars to place the flag on this flag and were told that we were trespassing by the junkyard workers.