Touching story.. I thank you Mr.Morton.

[Stephanie]

Dec 1, 8:06 PM EST

Vietnam vet praised for rescuing post office flag

By KRISTEN INBODY
Kodiak Daily Mirror

KODIAK, Alaska (AP) -- The Kodiak post office is heralding a man they call a local good Samaritan.

When Dawn Acosta, officer-in-charge at the post office, arrived for work Monday morning, Old Glory was missing from the flagpole.

"We go out Monday morning, and where's the flag?" Acosta recounted.

Her first thought was marauding teenagers, but then she found the American flag neatly folded into a tidy triangle with a note explaining its absence from the flagpole.


It seems over the weekend the rusty pulley on the flagpole snapped in severe winds. The American flag tumbled to the ground and lay in the parking lot.

Then Riley Morton came along.

The flag appeared to have been run over four or five times, Morton said. As he parked his car, he saw two more vehicles run over it.grrrrrrr, that upset's me.

"There was no excuse for people driving over it. It was really obvious it was the American flag," said Morton, a Vietnam veteran. "I have too much respect for what it means to allow that to happen."

The son of a World War II veteran, Morton served with 75th Infantry as an airborne ranger. He said he lost more than 100 friends in combat. Eleven buddies remain missing in action.

"They died for that flag," he said. "It means something to me. It means something to a lot of my friends. Maybe it doesn't mean anything to the people who drove over it, but that's beside the point."

Shaking his head that people could have so little respect for the flag, Morton picked up the soiled symbol and brought it home to clean it.

Acosta called to thank him and speaks of Morton with admiration.

"He's a war hero so if anyone was good to find it, it was definitely him," Acosta said.

"We just wanted to say thank you, for him to do that," she added.

Acosta said she saw no damage to the flag, which is back on display.


http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AK_BRITE_FLAG_SAMARITAN_AKOL-?SITE=AKFAI&SECTION=HOME

 

[Hobbit]

I've handled highly expensive pieces of electronics, porcelein, and even other people's babies, but I have never handled something so carefully as I handled the 100% cotton flag used by the Boy Scouts' Camp Orr, Arkansas. The feeling I got from holding that flag across my chest is something you just can't feel with one of those polyester numbers everyone uses now. With my Naval Academy injury still fresh in my leg, I alerted the camp leaders every time it was about to rain, ensuring that as few drops as possible ever touched Old Glory, and I would punch anybody who ever ran over that flag. Actually, I'd go get an oar from the boating area and beat him senseless, then probably go after the car.