POTTSTOWN PA – More than 100 U.S. armed services veterans, Boy and Cub Scout troop members, and citizens who remembered all too well the horrors of wars past gathered Sunday afternoon (June 6, 2010) in Pottstown’s Memorial Park to both pay homage to the area’s Vietnam War heroes and to retire U.S. flags during a formal ceremony in which they were sectioned and burned.

• Watch a video, above, in which Frank Strunk, president of the Vietnam Veterans chapter of Pottstown, explains the day’s significance and activities; or see it at The Post’s YouTube Account.

Scouts cut the stripes Sunday from a 60-foot-by-40-foot American garrison flag in a formal flag retirement ceremony at Pottstown Memorial Park.

As the flag retirement ceremony dictates, stripes were burned separately from blue fields and their stars until the ashes of both were unrecognizable.

The 18th annual flag day and retirement memorial ceremonies -  sponsored by Pottstown Chapter 565 of the Vietnam Veterans of America, Pottstown Elks Lodge 814, and local scouting groups – included an honor guard provided by Brig. Gen. Elmer S. Friedberg American Legion Post 244 of Sanatoga.

The area surrounding the park’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial was quiet and respectful, even though it seemed activity was everywhere. As Chapter 565 conducted its honors for 25 area residents who were killed in action in Vietnam – including nine graduates of Pottsgrove High School – scouts and scoutmasters were busy on the memorial’s east side cutting, sectioning and burning old flags no longer in condition to be presented publicly.

Flowers are laid beside 25 flags representing 25 area soldiers killed during the Vietnam War. Of them, nine were graduates of Pottsgrove High School, eight from Boyertown, five from Pottstown, and one each from Owen J. Roberts, Oley, and Daniel Boone.

National flag etiquette requires such flags “be retired in a dignified way, preferably by burning” until the remains cannot be recognized. The ashes are subsequently buried, just as were those who fell in the flag’s defense.

Elsewhere in the vast acreage of the park, people fished or went swimming in Manatawny Creek. A few rode bicycles in the parking lots. A small group played basketball at a court near King Street. Kids cooled off in the adjacent Splash Park. For all that bustle, though, the only sounds sometimes heard were the “whoosh” of a breeze fanning the flames of the flag fire pits or the words of ceremony speakers echoing across the open lawn.

Flags are intended to be sturdy. Cutting them apart, even with scissors specially sharpened for the task, wasn't easy.

Stars and stripes in separate piles await the fire pits.

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