How I Got Into The Flag Day Parade And My Father's German American Flag

June 14, 1978 found me riding in a jeep as part of a convoy headed to Ft. Drum, NY for two weeks active duty. The unit, an Army Reserve infantry battalion from Portland, ME had left the day before stayed overnight on the floor of an armory in Vermont, and was on the final leg of the trip. We were stretched out with a proscribed distance between vehicles, trucks, jeeps, ambulances, and fuel tankers, extending for several miles along the road, probably irritating local drivers, as the military was still suffering from its poor Vietnam era image.
At once the radios crackled with a message that we should all pull off to the side of the road as a problem had developed at the head of the column. The problem was that in planning the convoy route, no one had considered the possibility that any of the towns through which we had to pass, would be holding a parade in honor of Flag Day. I doubt that it had occurred to anyone that June 14 was Flag Day at all.
But here we were, outside the town of Gouverneur, NY, and our lead elements had come down upon the start of their parade. Being somewhat far back in the marching order, I have no idea what actually transpired only to know that with some quick thinking, probably on the part of the local officials, we would simply blend into the parade and pass on through town as part of it.
The commander sent a radio message back along the line, that we were to put on our web gear, that is to say our harnesses which held canteens, first aid and ammunition pouches, and replace our caps with our helmets. The convoy was then to bunch up.
When all this was accomplished, we fell into the parade behind the high school band. Ahead in one of the ambulances, Tommy Mullen, a somewhat irreverent medic, who had been awarded the Silver Star as a corpsman with the Marines in Vietnam, substituted a paper Burger King crown for his helmet, much to the delight of the small children.
Several of us practiced our best beauty pageant waves as we progressed through the town, and many surprised residents asked us how we knew about the parade, and what brought us to it. The answers, they received were varied, I’m sure. And so we passed along out of town and on our way to a cold, wet, “fun-filled” two weeks of playing soldier at Ft. Drum.
Which brings me to my father’s story. Toward the end of World War II, the 104th Infantry Division was in an area where combat operations had ceased. The US Army had linked up with the Russians, and everyone was starting to breathe more easily. Not having an American flag, my father thought it would be nice to have one flying over his platoon command post. A local German woman, who spoke English and had relatives in Chicago, volunteered to make an American flag, if he would show her exactly what it entailed. He explained the 13 stripes, the blue field, and told her it would require 48, five pointed stars. To help her, he took a piece of paper and cut out a star as a pattern. She promised to return with it the next day.
True to her word, she returned, but, as she explained, it took longer to make, and she had been up all night to finish it. The flag, she said, did not require 48 stars; it required 96! My father had forgotten: the flag has two sides!
When the unit returned to the states, my father decided the right thing to do with it, was to have everyone in the platoon put their name in a helmet, and the person, whose name was drawn would get to keep it. To this day he has wondered whatever happened to that flag.