VFW honors vets with flags

It's a matter of vets honoring vets as 13 military veterans from each of the five services gathered at Plains Cemetery to place American flags at the gravesites of veterans that date back to the Civil War.

It took the veterans, along with seven non military volunteers, including two children, a little over an hour to put out the 471 flags. The 12-by-18 inch flags are placed each year at veterans' graves in preparation of Memorial Day. Navy veteran Katlyn Wall showed up to make sure three of her veteran family members that had not made it to the veterans list - Dyke Stobie, Herb Stobie and Bert VanCampen - received their flags. Wall and her two children, Meghan, 10, and Scott, 6, also lent a hand to put flags at other veterans' gravesites. Wall has been living in Plains for about a year while her husband, now a Navy chief warrant officer, was deployed.

The veterans buried at Plains Cemetery include people who had taken part in the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, World Wars I and II, Korean War, and the Vietnam War. The group placed 35 more flags than last year for veterans who passed since the last time and because some had been missed in 2020. The volunteers worked in groups of two and three throughout the six sections.

It was the first time for some of the veterans to participate in the flag placement, including Chad Kavanaugh, a Navy vet, Noah Hathorne, a Marine Corps vet, both of Plains, and Angelo Alderete, a Thompson Falls resident who retired from the Air Force after 30 years service. "This is a must. Memorial Day honors the veterans and it's very important to recognize the veterans that served," said the 61-year-old Alderete. "The flags are a visual indication how the veterans have served their country. When you look out and see and see all the flags you realize how many veterans are buried here," he said.

VFW Post 3596 has been putting American flags on the vets' gravesites since the 1970s and has gone through different stages in an effort to make it more efficient and not miss tagging every veteran.

Plains resident Ed Foste, a Navy vet, stuck around after everyone else left and walked the cemetery in search of any veterans that didn't get a flag. He discovered six. "I walked to some places that are always missed," said Foste, who was in the Navy from 1980 to 2001. "I stay and visit with some of them, even though I don't know them. But they are still our brothers and sisters," he said.

Two years ago, Foste made over a thousand six-inch long PVC pipes that were inserted into the ground at the base of the gravesites, eliminating the need to first make a hole in the ground for the flag. Although it was easier for the most part, some of the tubes were filled with dirt and had to first be cleared. Foste was also part of the columbarium project at the cemetery, which will have slots for veterans' ashes.

Seventy-six-year-old Don Kunzer, an Army veteran with 28 years under his belt, has participated in the flag program since 1979, although he missed some when he was deployed to Panama, Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Uzbekistan. The oldest vet to participate was Jim Gillibrand, 81, who served in the Army from 1955 to 1961. Gillibrand has been placing flags for 21 years. Twenty-six-year Navy veteran Bill Beck, 80, who has been a participant for 15 years, said he doesn't think any other group would take on the task if the VFW didn't do it. "Technically, it belongs to the vet's club and we take care of our own," said Beck, who went from one section to another helping.

The Post 3596 Auxiliary also placed its flags at the graves of auxiliary members. It took just over an hour for Plains residents Carol Harris, Judy Colvard, and Nora Verpoorten, and four helpers to put out the 50 auxiliary flags. Verpoorten, whose husband Bill Bassett was a World War II soldier, has been placing the flags for 38 years.

Hathorne was honored to be involved in the flag project. "We're honoring the memories of the people that served our country as veterans," said the 40-year old Hathorne, who served in the Marine Corps from 1999 to 2003. Hathorne not only inserted flags, but cleaned off the veterans' headstones. The gravestone of Peter Norve, an Army veteran of the Spanish American War of 1898, was covered with so much moss and lichen that his identification and Army affiliation is partially obscured. Hathorne is concerned that if nothing is done, his name will be totally concealed. The former Marine tried to clean off the lichen, but it was too thick.

The event went well, according to Allen, who's participated in the program three times and has coordinated it for the last two years. She wants to update the list and make the task easier for the veterans to find each gravesite. Not all of them are marked with any type of military notation or insignia, which means they rely on a list. Allen said that the gravestones without any type of military affiliation will get a large coin marker, which she said will help ensure that all veterans get a flag.

"I plan to go through the entire cemetery myself to get a full count of gravesites that need the military markers," said Allen, who will be working with Shawn Emmett, the cemetery board president, to get a full cemetery list and plot map.

Post 3596 will hold a Memorial Day ceremony on Sunday, May 30, at 6 p.m. at Plains Cemetery. The post conducts the annual observance on May 30, the original Memorial Day. Once the ceremony at the cemetery is concluded, the group will move to the bridge next to the Sanders County Fairgrounds, where a wreath will be tossed into the Clark Fork River to honor the sea-going services, Navy, Coast Guard and Marine Corps.