Vets honor vets with Old Glory
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May 28, 2020
Ed Moreth
RECOGNIZING THEIR SERVICE – Navy retiree Bill Beck salutes at the gravesite of John Holland, a Navy veteran of the Korean War. Working with Beck at Plains Cemetery was Jim Gillibrand, an Army veteran. More than a dozen volunteers spent Saturday morning putting flags at the vets' gravesites in preparation of Memorial Day.
It was a gray drizzly day, but the Plains Cemetery is a little more colorful now, thanks to a group of military veterans that took time out Saturday morning to honor those who served in the armed forces and have passed.
Thirteen veterans and an employee from the Plains VFW placed 436 American flags on the gravesites of veterans in preparation of Memorial Day. Days prior, the post's auxiliary members put their flags on the spouses of vets there. On Saturday morning, it took the volunteers two hours to get Old Glory placed at each veteran gravesite, which are scattered throughout the three-quarters of a mile cemetery and contain the remains of military members that include the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, World Wars I and II, Korean War, and the Vietnam War.
"To each family I believe it is a reminder that their individual veteran family member is not forgotten. Regardless of their service, they were willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for us and future generations, if need be," said Ron Kilbury, the VFW post commander who served in the Army and Navy for 26 years. "We place flags on each grave to commemorate those sacrifices and the selfless willingness to make them. Many citizens will never know, thankfully, what these flags really cost. Veterans have purchased them with their lives. Memorial Day honors that payment each year," added Kilbury, a Thompson Falls resident.
The post has been adorning the graves with flags for almost 50 years, started by Mike Scott and Bill Valentine in the 1970s. Volunteers worked with a crude list that was sometimes tough to follow. Several years ago, Army veteran Polly Gill took over the flag project and designed computerized maps with more accurate locations of the veterans' final resting places.
Some of the volunteers Saturday have been participating in the flag placement project for several years. The 80-year-old Jim Gillibrand, who served in the Army from 1955 to 1961, has participated for 20 years. He said some day others will be placing a flag at his gravesite plot next to his late wife, Elizabeth, at Plains Cemetery. This was the first time for four volunteers, including Callie Timmer, the VFW's assistant bar manager, Navy veteran Rocky Hart, who is visiting from New Mexico, Heather Allen, an Air Force veteran and the VFW post quartermaster, and Army veteran Michael Swanson, 39, the youngest volunteer veteran. However, the former soldier has helped place flags on vet graves at cemeteries where he was stationed in Colorado.
"Memorial Day is a day to remember those who served our country and are no longer with us, so putting the flags next to their graves is just one way we, as the VFW, choose to honor them every year," said Allen, who joined the VFW two years ago.
The VFW divided the cemetery into six sections for the flag project. The veterans usually work in pairs with one using a screwdriver to make a hole at the base of the grave while the other placed the flagstaff in the ground, but Navy retiree Ed Foste of Plains made six-inch PVC pipes that were inserted in the ground at the vets' gravesites, which made it easier for the volunteers, who didn't have to first make a hole. Foste made around 1,500 pipes for Sanders County cemeteries from Heron to Dixon.
Foste and his son-in-law and grandkids helped Charles "Ole" Oelschlager and his wife, Jan, mow and clean up the Dixon Cemetery and place a dozen flags there last week. The Oelschlagers have been doing the vet flags at Dixon for more than 30 years. It began because Jan, who grew up in Dixon, wanted to mark the graves of her relatives that served in the military.
"My sense of pride and patriotism is at its highest when we do projects such as this. Any time I can honor a fellow brother or sister I am proud to do so," said Allen, who served in the Air Force for nearly 10 years. The VFW will hold a Memorial Day ceremony on Saturday, May 30, at 6.m. at Plains Cemetery. The post conducts the annual ceremony on May 30, the original Memorial Day. Once the ceremony at the cemetery is concluded, the group will move to the bridge next to the Sanders County Fairgrounds, where a wreath will be tossed into the Clark Fork River to honor the sea-going services – Navy, Coast Guard and Marine Corps.
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