By Audrey Posten

At least 200 unserviceable American flags were respectfully retired on June 6, in a ceremony conducted by local American Legion and Amvets members at the Clayton County Fairgrounds.

“It’s a ceremony we conduct every year on the first Saturday of June. Flag Day is June 14, which a lot of organizations will do it on Flag Day or the week before,” shared Randy Moose of Garnavillo, vice commander of district four of the American Legion of Iowa.

“It’s most of the county,” added Larry E. Moser, commander of Clay-Gar Post 723. “There are a couple Legions who burn their own.”

Each ceremony begins with words from the commander and a prayer by the chaplain. Taps also play before the flags are burned.

It took around an hour to retire all the flags—which also included some POW, state and other flags—but Moose noted it’s taken longer.

“A couple years ago, with the pandemic, it got bottled up and we had 400 of them,” he said.

“Oodles,” Moser recalled, “and some were big, big flags. Those take awhile to burn,” if not cut into smaller pieces.

If people have unserviceable flags to retire throughout the year, Moser said they can leave them in a box in front of the community center in Garnavillo.

“Or turn them over to a veteran or Legion member,” Moose said. “We put them all together and keep them for this ceremony here today.”

Just don’t throw them away. American flags should be retired respectfully, the veterans stressed.

“We used to call it burning the flag, but that kind of got a connotation,” Moose said, “so it’s been changed to an unserviceable flag retirement program. If we didn’t do it, they’d just end up in a landfill somewhere, and you can’t do that with an American flag.”

To Moser, this is proper.

“We fought for it. They fought for it. It needs to be done in respect,” he reflected.