The Keepers of 7,000 US Flags in Quincy, IL. on Memorial Day

by Pythiian1 | May 24, 2009 at 07:58 am

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This Memorial Day weekend is the time for all Americans, far and near, to set aside their differences to remember and honor America's servicemen and women who have sacrificed their lives for the nation.

On Memorial Day, Americans can take a moment for remembrance, if they so choose to honor the unknown and known service people.

President Barack Obama has called on the American people to join him in paying tribute to America’s veterans, servicemen and women, and those who have made the ultimate sacrifice, and their families.

In his weekly remarks, "America’s troops and their families embody what is best in America, and the American people have a responsibility to serve them as well as they have served us."

This Memorial Day weekend, Americans will gather on lawns and porches, fire up the grill, and enjoy the company of family, friends, and neighbors. But this is not only a time for celebration, it is also a time to reflect on what this holiday is all about; to pay tribute to our fallen heroes; and to remember the servicemen and women who cannot be with us this year because they are standing post far from home – in Iraq, Afghanistan, and around the world.

Readers can view video of the President's weekly address on Memorial Day here:

Long before President Obama's reminder and far away from the national spotlight, an extraordinary couple has been volunteering to honor the fallen American heroes at Sunset Cemetery. It is one of the largest veteran cemeteries in the country, in Quincy, Adams County, Illinois.

For over a decade, in Quincy, Illinois, George and Chris Black have been quietly honoring the fallen American soldiers. They are the keepers of the 7,000 American flags displayed in Quincy's Sunset Cemetery by hand-washing and pressing the flags, and fixing the miniature wooden flagpoles that marked each grave on each Memorial Day.

The Blacks would take bins of flags home where Mr. Black would fix the miniature flagpoles and Mrs. Black would hand-wash and iron each flag in time for Memorial Day.

Mrs. Black volunteered to iron the flags after she and her husband took children from their church to the Veterans Home for a service project.

"They're just thrown in these bins," Black said. "When it's time to put them up, they're all wrinkled and dirty.

"When we took them down, I asked the guys, couldn't you get some organization to press these flags and make them look nice, and they laughed at me. They said nobody would do that, and I said I would. ... I didn't realize how many there were."

"I started in 1999 and I've done it every year since," Black said.

It is a project that would have required a dozen or more people to accomplish, but Mrs. Black is happy to start ironing months ahead. She irons daily for several hours at a time.

There are 600-1000 flags in each bin. According to Mrs. Black, each of the fallen American deserves to be honored with a clean and well pressed flag on Memorial Day.

The enormous act of kindness and patriotism started simply enough. Chris Black and her husband George volunteered to put up the flags at the Veterans Home 11 years ago, when Chris was not satisfied by the condition of the flying flags.

"I said why couldn't some organization take this on as a project and clean these flags up and press them?" Black said. " And they laughed at me. They said nobody wants to do that. And I said I will."

With 600 to 1,000 flags in each bin, Mrs. Black works for months, ironing sometimes several hours a day, until all the flags are pressed and ready to fly. She estimates that the entire project takes over 70 hours to prepare all of the flags.

George helps with the process out in his wood shop.

"I just repair the ones that need new sticks on them, or need an extra staple, or need tips on them," George Black said. "I like the flags with tips on them. I think they look better."

Each year for the past 11 years, the Blacks, school children, and volunteers would place these American flags before the gravestones and niches of service members buried at the Sunset Cemetery in Quincy just prior to Memorial Day weekend.

The Blacks hope residents take a moment to visit the cemetery over Memorial Day weekend, honoring the service men and women and to see the flags.

"If there's a little bit of wind it's just gorgeous," Chris Black said. "Because they flutter, there's 7,000 of them."

While Mr. and Mrs. Black have been honoring the nation's war heroes quietly all through these years without fanfare and public notice, it is hoped that readers will also honor George and Chris Black as extraordinary keepers of the nation's flag in remembrance of fallen American heroes.

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djermano

at 05:27 on May 25th, 2009

Memorial day for me is remembering the millions of innocent people killed by US soldiers who got and get away with murder....Their excuse to protect freedom is as irrational and delusional as American Politics... The only freedom Americans want is to have a military to wage false lying wars, and give excuse to how to kill Americans to procure fear for the destiny of the Military Machines and its madness on society. ... All I can say is keep your War Machine and your bloody flags out of my country....

http://my.nowpublic.com/world/forget-veterans-and-unknown-soldier-remember-millions-unknown-civilians..

http://203.208.39.132/search?q=cache:PfdD7_LlYoEJ:www.pwconservative.net/2008/10/powells-role-in-mai-lai.html+COlin+Powell+and+Mai+Lai&cd=17&hl=zh-CN&ct=clnk&gl=cn&st_usg=ALhdy29UJaNxUs4xTdi_pRYz2I54MJ3Jvw....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse....

http://www.fantompowa.net/Flame/usa_massacre_in_korea.htm...

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/CIAtimeline.html....

Rev. Jermano

Rory Cripps

at 09:02 on May 30th, 2009

Rev. Jermano: I agree that there's alot of work to do in making America a better and more just society. But with that said, do you really believe that America is as bad as you make it out to be? And if you do believe that America is that bad, then what other contries are you comparing America to as a basis for your belief?

djermano

at 02:41 on May 31st, 2009

Yes Rory I really do... Democracy is a farce...controlled by the same 2 party system..that supports each others lies. War Crimes are commited from the President on down...and no one is held accountable...They are pardoned, here, and pardoned there...as if Laws were designed to forever keep their crimes from coming to Justice..Nixon pardoned Lt. Cally for the killing and murder of an entire village of people in Mai Lai Vietnam...Ford Pardons Nixon, Bush pardons..The Reaganites responsible for the Iran Contra Scandal...trading arms for hostages...and sending profits and arms to Nicaragua.....It is a script they follow which they think they honor the laws, but really misusing the law...and making America a mockery to the World.. They create new wars to avoid the prosecution of the old wars...As Bush engineered the take over of Iraq. America has no justice...for the people... It is only fraud committed by the leaders who have essentially destroyed the fabric, of real America. They hide from justice while standing before the people....while watching it sink into the abyss of meaningness. They are above the Law...as they impose it on the many countries in the world....They are liars and the stench of it sickens me.... No matter how much they try to whitewash their crimes from the public....they carry the stench from shore to shore....from country to country....

There is this ideaology war between Capitalism and Communism... The downfall of Capitalism is not because of Communism...it is because of the Militarism of the Capitalistic State that is its downfall. The capitalist are really fear driven..afraid..cowards...to allow itself to work...without a military leading and pounding away.

Capitalist are always afraid they are going to lose something as well. Whether a stake in the market of Oil vs. Electric Markets...or the shares to Energy Companies because the CEO's have succumbed to fraudulent manipulations of the stock market. With the US using the Miitary to invade other countries for Oil resources....and a blind Sec.of Defense Robert Gates who refuses to concede that many unanswered questions to 911 still exist....gives great illegitimacy to waging war about uncertain facts that created this war on terror.

www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13773....

Afraid to be defenseless is akin to being dehydrated while living in a rainforest. It just makes no sense to have such a pronounced ability to nuke every country in the world a thousand times each and then some... That is extremism, that is hard liners, that is paranoia, that is what creates terrorism.

The US problem is essentially its Military Industrial Complex....that manipulates the market to it's own Military forceable pleasures...Dictatorial I would call it....And yet they claim to be a free society. Markets will never be true...when a military establishes the rules and the torture chambers. Markets and Capitalism will never function when espionage strikes as 911 did. Markets and Capitalism will never function when honesty is locked up...and leaders get away with murder, while calling real Americans...anti Americans.

No it is not a struggle between Capitalism and Communism.....it is a struggle between Capitalism and its Military Conciousness. As the false idea of Capitalism grows stronger meaning the Military and the disregard to civilian populations....the true Capitalism falls and succumbs to the Military brutality...forever unable or willing to support or return...

The people then cling to the peoples only alternative and that is Communism...or as I call it Communionism.

We need not blame the failure of Capitalism on outside threats...it just isn't true. It is the Military that is creating them and in the meantime destroying itself and its ability to have any legitimacy.....

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090530/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/as_gates_asia_security_summit...

Gates still believes N. Korea is starving its people, when the US is doing the same old sanctions game that killed thousands of innocent people in Iraq. He doesn't realize that he is the terrorist...having more nukes to destroy every country in the world 1,000 times and then some. Just who is the hardliner here? Who is the extremist? After 911...countries want their own security....America can't provide security for itself.....given the fact 911 happened, and the lies that emanated blaming foreigners for their own dastardly deed. They wage war...without answering many unanswered questions to 911....and expect the world to blindly leap under their defense umbrella riddled with holes and lies. ...

They attack and invade Iraq and Afghanistan not knowing the real facts to 911...which the ground reality proves to be different than the concocted story given by their Media Hucksters. .. N. Korea is not going to be duped again..... Sure the US will say N. Korea lies by gaining concessions then restarting their nuclear program....but is that lie worse than the thousands of lies the US have been regurgitating and vomiting in the world since WWII?

What country has ever used nuclear weapons on another country? None other than the USA.. And did that country (Japan) have any nuclear weapons? They had none...

Now who does the world really think would use Nuclear Weapons again....Ah....not to hard to figure out...None other than Robert Gates and the USA.. Why do you think other super-powers have nuclear weapons? China, Russia....France....UK? Because they don't trust the USA....or each other really....

And so this dark road Gates talks about is the very dark road the US has been on since the dropping of the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima, and Nagasaki....in Japan. .. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out who should be taking the Robert Gates advice here....who should be taking the medicine....and who should be under sanctions.. Clearly the USA themselves... So R.G. how about getting down from that high horse of rhetorical BS....you are feeding the World.....and come to terms with your own destructiveness, your own out of control Miltiary Complex....and your self righteous indignation in invading other countries...for the sake of Americanism....

How about leaving Iraq, and Afghanistan....how about leaving Europe....and leaving Japan..so they can be free from American Occupation and lies...about your military support.

Face it Gates you may cajole other nations to believe your lies..but the reason they do is because of fear .....Nations don't live by fear.....it is by honesty, respect, and friendship...and removing the nuclear threat.....You people continue to harbor over the World.... Blame N. Korea.....? You are really a laughing Stock....A Joke to reality.

And we celebrate Memorial Day....as a day that remembers the fallen soldiers who fought in fake wars. Or do we remember them on the day because they were also lied too, and had no real reckoning to their demise. Then to think of the millions of civilians that persish that are never remembered or have a day of rememberance speaks volumes of the sickened mindset of the American Political Apparatus...which only lives to honor its comrades who delivered those bullets of death to innocent people that are covered-up and forgotten forever.

I shall not rest to allow the American people to be duped into the false lies of the American Government so called Democracy Establishment and its Militaristic Indignation...

Rev. Jermano....

R.S. Glines

at 21:03 on May 24th, 2009

Let's all take a moment to remember the true meaning of Memorial Day.

It's a whole lot more than a three day weekend.

Kudos to George and Chris Black!

R.S. Glines has contributed a photo to this story.

Gem Images

at 20:27 on May 24th, 2009

I, speaking for myself and my wife only, am proud to honor our service women and men that have died in the service of OUR nation. That includes the unnamed ones that do not show up on the official rolls. I also am proud to contribute a photo to this story.

Amy Judd

at 21:50 on May 24th, 2009

I'm so sorry I missed this piece earlier - thank you for posting about this important day, and about the 7,000 flags, which I never knew about.

Pythiian1

at 08:03 on May 25th, 2009

Thank you so much, Amy, for your read, comments, and recommendation.

I thought the Black's quietly generous acts are great reminders about community and public service in ways that needed to be told to others. I hope the fallen Americans' families and loved ones appreciate George and Chris Black's volunteerism and remembrance on a yearly basis. I'm mindful that this human story is obscure, which makes it special to share the story with others on NP.

KaaPhotography

at 05:01 on May 25th, 2009

These photos were taken in Red Wing, MN. along the banks of the Mississippi River in Bay Point Park. Over 300 flags were place in memory or honor of a military member currently serving or deceased. Family members placed each flag one at a time escorted by current members of Civil Air Patrol, and branches of the military, members of the VFW and American Legion. Each flag placed has the name of the person being honored. They are in place for 3 days, illuminated at night and guarded by volunteers from the local police department. A ceremony is held prior to the placing of the flags.

KaaPhotography has contributed a photo to this story.

Pythiian1

at 05:46 on May 25th, 2009

To those folks who want to contribute photos about Memorial Day Observance, there is a great round-up NP article where you can contribute your photos here.

Rory Cripps

at 12:27 on May 25th, 2009

THANK YOU GEORGE AND CHRIS BLACK! IT'S THOUGHTFUL PEOPLE LIKE YOU THAT MAKE AMERICA THE GREAT COUNTRY THAT IT IS!

djermano

at 17:42 on May 25th, 2009

Great Country of Murderers and corrupt Politicians.

WMLARSEN (not verified)

at 08:22 on May 27th, 2009

YOU'VE MADE YOUR POINT, NOW SHUT THE F*** UP, COWARD

djermano

at 17:44 on May 28th, 2009

Cowards hide behind guns and kill innocent people.. I don't do that...So take your own advice and stop parading your dishonor as a Memorial Day.

Rev. Jermano

WMLARSEN (not verified)

at 08:24 on May 27th, 2009

YOU'VE MADE YOUR POINT , NOW SHUT THE F*** UP COWARD

politisite

at 17:57 on June 8th, 2009

If you take issue with the article no problem commenting on that fact, but trying to hijack the conversation to degrade the emotions or feelings of others is not appropriate. I have traveled extensively and The USA is no where close to being totally corrupt. To back my point I will use an independent source -

Below 5, you have 119 countries out of 163, including such nations as Italy, Greece, South Africa, Brazil and China. Below 3 on the TI scale, some 47 nations drop off, though many are very close to the line.

America Ranked #20 and Canada Ranked #17. Political Corruption is in the top 20 as well but countries like China for example ranked in the lower tier