Global met local on Sunday, when a national World War II memorial flag that has traveled to battlefields around the world made an appearance in Point Place. The 90-foot-long flag stopped in Toledo during the final tour before its retirement at the end of this year, after which it will be housed at the USS Constitution Museum in Boston and brought out only for special occasions.
Though the event, organized by Howard Pinkley of Flag Sales and Repairs, was a commemoration of the War of 1812, the real history on display was that of the flag. Marc Valentine, curator of the National Flag Exhibit in Boston, who brought the flag to Toledo, listed its facts before the unfurling began.
In 1991, then-President George H.W. Bush laid his hand on its nylon surface at the Punchbowl Cemetery in Honolulu, dedicating it as the national WWII memorial flag fifty years after the attack on Pearl Harbor. For the past decade, the flag has traveled from England to the South Pacific, stopping at WWII battlefields in 35 countries. It was the first flag to travel through the tunnel beneath the English Channel, it has visited General George S. Patton's grave in Luxembourg, and it was once carried by 100 US Navy Sailors to the White House.
On Sunday, the flag made a decidedly shorter trip, from Washington Township to Toledo and back, grasped tightly by about 70 residents battling a stiff wind.
Mr. Valentine shouted directions to the volunteers as they unrolled the flag and walked it across the Fred Young Bridge over the Ottawa River.
"Hang on tight everybody, we're about to hit the breeze," he called.
"Let's go! Ho!"
"We need more folks under the flag in the middle there!"
At the center of the bridge, the flag bearers paused for a photo and recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance, led by U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur.
"This is really a people's event," said Rep. Kaptur after volunteers had refurled the flag and nestled it in the back of Mr. Valentine's van. "We decided to do something the people could participate in. The citizens of Point Place are very proud of where they come from, very patriotic. It's a much more close-to-hole delegation."
Tom Stagner demonstrated that hometown enthusiasm, eagerly noting that he was a lifetime resident of the neighborhood. But his reason for attending reached farther than Toledo.
"I'm a Vietnam vet, that's why," Mr. Stagner remarked. "It's in my heart."
Tim Mabry, a 3rd Class Boatsman with the U.S. Coast Guard from South Carolina, also thought beyond the Glass City.
"You've got to think of the history behind the flag," he explained. "I'm here for service. We don't serve ourselves, we serve the country. This is one way we could show that."
Contact Jessica Shor at: jshor@theblade.com or 419-724-6516.
First Published August 6, 2012, 3:39 a.m.