Fort Logan National Cemetery officials threatened Friday to follow behind a group of people who annually place small American flags beside each gravestone for Veterans Day and remove the tributes, members of the group say.
“This isn’t right. This is totally disgraceful and disrespectful that vets can’t put flags out for Veterans Day,” said David Kyle, a disabled U.S. Navy veteran who served on the USS Thomas Jefferson, a nuclear-powered submarine in 1976. “It’s disgusting.”
A group of volunteers has, for the past five years, sought donations to pay for 3,000 flags before and then placed them as memorials to honor those buried in the cemetery, said volunteer April Edquist, 47, who lives in Littleton.
But after putting out about 300 flags on Friday morning, officials from the cemetery’s front office stopped them and said they were not authorized to place flags and if they continued, cemetery employees would throw them away.
Cemetery staff explained that the volunteer tribute violates cemetery rules on the placement of flowers and memorials. Only Fort Logan staff can place flags beside graves and only on Memorial Day, Edquist said.
A call left at the cemetery’s front office Friday was not immediately returned.
“He kept saying you can’t put them out. You can’t put them out,” said Kyle, who volunteered to help place the flags for the first time this year. He did so even though service-related injuries to his knees, hips and ankles cause him intense pain.
Edquist said the group plans to place the 3,000 flags just outside the cemetery between the fence and the sidewalk to honor deceased veterans. She said everyone in the group has .
“All of us have a different reason for being out here,” she said. “We’re mothers, wives, siblings of veterans who are buried here.”
