WINTERVILLE — A newly refurbished flag pole a the Boys & Girls Club was put to good use on Friday when a pair of U.S. Marines gave youths a crash course on flag etiquette.
Sgt. Eli Dodson and Lance Cpl. Aaron Barnhill, Marine recruiters in Greenville, marked Flag Day at the Jack Minges Unit on Fire Tower Road with a presentation on how to properly raise, lower and fold the Stars and Stripes.
Learning to take care of the flag helps young people learn to to take care of themselves, the Marines said.
“I think it’s important to kind of show and be a leader in that sense,” Barnhill said. “To basically pave the way for how somebody would want to carry themselves professionally and with discipline.”
For Dodson, the flag is a representation of the country and those who sacrificed their lives and bodies for it. Club members said they appreciated the visit. The clubs did not allow The Daily Reflector to use the last names of participants, however.
Kyle, 15, said the sacrifices made by those in the military service resonated with him as he folded the flag and raised it into a clear blue sky.
“The flag does represent a lot to me, and I was really conscious about not letting it fall,” he said. “The flag, growing up, is something that has always been there representing ... who I am. Even looking at a flag I always make sure I do my pledge to salute it. That’s part of me, I love my country.”
He thinks that people in the U.S. are resilient and able to face challenges.
“I’m not going to say that we are a carefree country, because we have our problems, but we’re going to get it done,” Kyle said. “Our country is really named the United States; it has to represent a lot and I’ve been telling people this isn’t like any other country.”
Jaylynn, 13, said the flag makes her feel inspired.
“Every time I see it I think of morals and all the respect, all the history in the world,” Jaylynn said. “It has me going back and thinking about it and makes me want to make the world better.”
Imani, 16, was responsible for hitching the North Carolina flag to the pole to go up under the nation’s colors. She comes from a military family with a handful of uncles and great-uncles in the U.S. Army and said she felt the gravity of responsibility toward the flag.
“I felt like there was a lot of pressure not to drop that flag,” Imani said. “I also felt pretty good to get to raise the flag cause I never did that before.
“I always wondered how they got it up there, turns out it’s some clips.”
Imani does not want to serve in the military herself but instead aspires to attend Howard University. She had a chance to speak with U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis and U.S. Rep. Don Davis at Capitol Hill last July about issues facing teens in Pitt County. She said it is OK to love your country while acknowledging it has issues.
“I feel like a lot of people are afraid to open the conversation,” Imani said. “The controversy and then being scared of the backlash of it. I never cared. I’m going to talk.”
Dallas Clark, a retired Greenville lawyer and Boys & Girls Club supporter, served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1968-1971 including stations in Vietnam, Okinawa, the Philippines and at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, asked kids how much they knew about the flag.
It turned out they were well-versed, with some knowing the 50 stars represent the states of the union and others that the 13 stripes represent the original 13 colonies. He thinks that knowledge and appreciation is important in modern times.
“(The flag) means even more today because there’s so much stuff going on,” said Clark, the former president of the Boys & Girls Club of the Coastal Plains’ Board of Directors and current member of its Foundation Board. “There’s people out there not standing for the flag and all that sort of thing and I’m glad these kids now know what they’re supposed to do. Whether they do it or not is another question, but at least they know what is the right thing to do.”
The flag was hoisted on a refurbished pole, which Mark Holtzman, CEO of Boys & Girls Club of the Coastal Plains, said has stood at the building since 1993. The pole is steel, not aluminum, and had rusted to the point it was an eyesore. Clark knew it needed to be fixed.
“When the flag pole was out here, I saw it and it just didn’t look good,” Clark said. “It’s the first thing you see, and they always say first impressions only happen once.
“The flag pole looked terrible. We looked to see if we could get a new one and that was like $3,000, but Mark knows what he was doing and called someone.”
Flag Day is observed each June 14 to commemorate the Second Continental Congress’ 1777 decision to adopt the flag of the United States. The first national observance of Flag Day was on June 14, 1877, and in 1916 President Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation for the national observance of the holiday. Its observation was signed into perpetuity on Aug. 3, 1949, by President Harry Truman.
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