Tulsa VFW Post Retires More Than 2,000 Flags On Flag Day

Tulsa VFW Post 577 is the only permanent flag retiring facility in Oklahoma. On Sunday, more than 2,000 flags from all over the state were retired at Post 577 with the help of Boy Scout Troop 2222 to honor to commemorate Flag Day. Sunday marks the 135th remembrance of Flag Day in the United States.

For 135 years, June 14th has been nationally recognized as flag day. Many of the veterans that attended the ceremony say the flag means the world to them and they try to do everything they can to honor it.

“On Flag Day it brings us back to that, we remember the service members that have fallen for that flag and we honor them when we put that flag to cremation and to rest,” says Josh Starks, the Tulsa VFW Post Commander.

These veterans say the fallen flag is the symbol of the fallen soldiers before them and now these flags are receiving their proper goodbye.

Post 577 retired more than 2,000 flags on Sunday with a ceremony and a salute before the tattered stars and stripes cloth was thrown into the fire.

Army veteran and Tulsa VFW Post Commander Dan Fuller asks that if you or your business is flying a worn flag, to please take it down and turn it over to your local VFW post to retire properly.

“It’s very disheartening,” Fuller says. “A lot of times you will see the flag in a bad condition and you question the motive of the person or entity that flies it well beyond its use, we are happy to retrieve those and dispose of them properly.”

“A lot of times they don’t know what to do with the flag so they stack them in boxes when they’ve become tattered, we usually get those boxes and it builds up. We also get a lot of state and city flags,” Starks says.

If you have a flag you need to have retired, you can drop it off or mail it to Tulsa VFW Post 577 so the veterans there and dispose of the flag properly.