THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, June 14, 1994 TAG: 9406140351
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY FRANCIE LATOUR, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940614 LENGTH: VIRGINIA BEACH
He burns them.
{REST} According to the U.S. flag code, burning is not only proper, but the only respectful method for destroying a discarded flag with dignity.
``It's to symbolize the pride in our country, that we should respect the symbol of our nation, not go through the streets yelling `anarchy, anarchy,' '' said Brown, 13, a Life Scout and senior patrol leader with Boy Scout Troop 65.
Eagle Scout Ike Tucker, 17, said that if the Scouts don't burn the discarded flags, ``people will trash them or throw them away, which is not respectful.''
``It's pretty much ignorance why people don't understand the true meaning of the flag,'' Tucker said.
Compared to the more familiar image of anti-U.S. protesters stomping over drapes of red, blue and white set afire, the elaborate and reverent ritual of flag burning performed by Boy Scouts, American Legion posts and other patriotic organizations across the country has received little attention.
Since the program began two years ago, more than 75 residents and businesses from Newport News to New York have donated their flags to Boy Scout Troop 65 of Tidewater Council for a final paying of respect. The troop, which has about 40 members, is sponsored by Foundry United Methodist Church on Virginia Beach Boulevard.
``Our scoutmaster's closet is full of them,'' said Eagle Scout John Talton, 16.
For Talton, whose father initiated the Boy Scout program, the actual burning is the only thing that the sacred ritual has in common with the controversial act of sacrilege.
``It's not the act, it's the ceremony and dignity with which it's done,'' he said, unfolding with the utmost care a tattered flag whose red stripes had faded to pink, whose white stripes were stained yellow, and whose once royal blue colors were now graying.
To each of these colors, the Boy Scout troop salutes in a patriotic farewell: red for those who have died in the course of battle, white for purity and blue for honor and courage. Gathered beside a campfire, two Scouts hold up the flag for a final waving while a third tells the story of each individual flag.
``This one flew in honor of a man who died, `a musician and a teacher,' it says, we don't know who,'' said Talton, displaying a flag whose stars were shot with holes. The donated flags often come with the histories of the people who gave them.
Its history now reverently remembered, the solemn and painstaking process of the flag's stripping begins. Each red and white stripe in turn is torn away from the flag along its seam and placed in its center, until only a ball of fabric remains. ``So it's no longer an American flag anymore,'' Talton said, invoking the speaker's traditional incantation: ``As the flag was made, we now take apart its pieces.''
Only at this moment can the flag touch the ground, where the Scouts give final respects before laying it on the campfire to be burned.
``So we don't ever set the flag on fire, just what used to be the flag,'' said Tucker. The son of the troop's present assistant scoutmaster shakes his head fiercely at the comparison with flag burning. ``I think retiring a flag is not as harsh as burning,'' Tucker said.
The troop usually holds its flag disposal ceremony at Scout campfires. Recently, for example, it performed a ceremony at a Camporee at Oceana Naval Air Station before a crowd of about 2,000 Scouts and parents.
In observing the little-known tradition, Brown said he hoped to restore meaning to patriotic holidays that is often forgotten.
``People don't care about Memorial Day and Flag Day anymore,'' he said. ``They just think it's a chance to go down to the beach with a couple of beers, to have sales and get people to shop.''
by CNB