Messenger Intern

The Fourth of July is annually celebrated as America’s birthday, but the idea of a day specifically celebrating the American Flag is rumored to have first originated as early as 1877, the 100th anniversary of the U.S.A. adopting the use of a red-white-and-blue banner. Flag Day recognizes the day in 1777, during the month of June, that Continental Congress adopted the "Stars and Stripes" as the official flag of the United States. President Woodrow Wilson established Flag Day as an annual national celebration in 1916, then in 1949, Congress officially recognized Flag Day by passing the National Flag Day Bill during President Harry Truman’s administration. Now, 53 years later, Brundidge will hold a special ceremony on the City Hall grounds to retire the American Flag properly and with honor.

The Brundidge VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars) is responsible for making all of the necessary arrangements for a patriotic program to take place for the first year ever at 9 p.m. Boy Scouts will be present, Stanley Peters, along with all VFW associates, to retire American Flags properly.

"Most people don’t know that there is a proper way to destroy flags. You don’t just throw them away; you have got to retire them with dignity. I know that there are a lot of places here in Brundidge, like the Lion’s Club, who need to retire flags and have been saving them for this patriotic program that we’ll have on Flag Day," Freddy Turner of the Brundidge VFW said.

While this is the first year that Brundidge will have their own flag retirement ceremony on Flag Day, the idea of honoring the flag and destroying it properly on Flag Day has been in the works for several years.

"We are really looking forward to having this ceremony this year because we have been wanting to do one for about 2 years now. It is so hard to find people who actually know how to disperse of the flag the proper way. We’ll probably have another ceremony next year, too, and many more to come," Moses Davenport, Brundidge Police Chief said.

Ever wondered where the blue, red and white came from?

"We take the stars and blue union from heaven, the red from our mother country, separating it by white stripes, thus showing we have separated from her, and the white stripes shall go down to posterity representing liberty," President George Washington said.