Burial Flag donation, do not know what to do??

[rosco4069]

Our boy scout troop had a retiremen ceremony and we were donated a burial flag at random, no family name, or any other contact information.

It was still in its folded triangle, not even sun faded, or any other signs of use. I will say it is probably from the 60's or 70's, the white edging was yellowing as one in my family from Viet Nam. We did not burn it in retirement, it did not seem right.

We can we do with it, we have no way on honoring this as a donation, to a VFW???


Any suggestions would be appreciated!!

[Robin Hickman]

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Hello, Rosco4069 !

Welcome to the USA-Flag-Site !


QUOTE : "Our boy scout troop had a retiremen ceremony and we were donated a burial flag at random, no family name, or any other contact information. It was still in its folded triangle, not even sun faded, or any other signs of use. I will say it is probably from the 60's or 70's, the white edging was yellowing as one in my family from Viet Nam. We did not burn it in retirement, it did not seem right.

We can we do with it, we have no way on honoring this as a donation, to a VFW???"


If I understand your situation (in BLUE, above) and your question (in RED, above) CORRECTLY, it all boils down to something like THIS :

Your Boy Scout Troop was conducting a "Flag Retirement" ceremony and a person that you don't know gave your Boy Scout Troop an American Flag ("burial flag") to be "burned" along with the rest of the Flags that the Troop was "retiring".

However, because that particular Flag "looked" like it was still in pretty good shape ("not even sun faded"), you decided to NOT burn it with the rest of the Flags because "it did not seem right".

So, because you decided to NOT burn it along with the other Flags, you now have a perfectly good American Flag that an anonymous person, or family, had intended to be destroyed by fire in an honorable and dignified manner and entrusted to your Boy Scout Troop the Sacred Honor of carrying out their wishes.

You don't know who to give the Flag back to (because you don't know who gave it to you to be "retired" in the first place) and you don't know what else to do with it.

Is that about right ???


Robin Hickman
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[NAVA1974]

An unused USA internment flag should be donated to a school or other non-profit organization and be FLOWN IN THE NAME OF THE PERSON it honored. It should not be burned. That is wasteful and environmentally damaging. There used to be a retired fellow in Queens, NYC, who took it upon himself to solicit families of deceased veterans to get their internment flags "out of the closet." He collected these flags and recycled them by giving them to churches, schools, and other organizations that would fly the flags as they were intended.

[Robin Hickman]

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An interesting thought.

Robin
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