Throwback Thursday, The Tattered Flagf

Throwback Thursday.  Betsy Ross’s Tattered  Flag.

I was stationed at NAS Lakehurst, New Jersey.  In some of the neighboring cemeteries it wasn’t rare to see a grave for a Revolutionary War soldier and sometimes a whole section of a cemetery was for their remains.

I think it was Halloween evening 1964, we were getting loaded at the base’s E.M. Club during Happy Hour.  We were running our mouths when one of us said since it was Halloween we should visit a graveyard  and we were immature, so why not?

About a mile on the road to Toms River is a old cemetery.   I remember we did not go into the driveway of the graveyard, but parked on the side of the highway and climbed a small bank.  I don’t think we knew where the driveway was.   It has some Revolutionary War soldiers buried in it.  One was buried near the road, there is a black and white picture of me, somewhere, lying beside he grave.  But, except for the lights of passing cars on the highway it scary dark. 

One of us remembered a nice cemetery in downtown Trenton, New Jersey, which is probably over 30 miles away.  We reasoned with the town lights of Trenton it should be  well lit up, not as scary.  We drove to Trenton.

We were in luck, the cemetery was well lit.  It was just a stone’s throw from the Delaware River, that Washington and his men crossed the Delaware near Trenton  and Emanuel Leutz painted the event on canvas and it is very popular* . We took time to appreciate the ancient art of tombstone making and Revolutionary Soldiers’ graves.  One of us, reverend or not, stole a weathered Revolutionary War flag, the kind with 13 stars, the kind Betsy Ross designed (although there is a dispute among historians that it might not have been Betsy after-all).

By the time we got back to the barracks it was after 10pm, which meant lights out; bed time; or bunk time.

We went to the cubical of Dick Hyatt, who couldn’t go with us because he had duty that evening, to tell him about our adventure and he was sound asleep.

We tried to wake him up but he just mumbled in his sleep.  We draped the tattered American Revolution flag over his torso, like a second blanket and tiptoed out. 

But then one of us (not me) wanted to keep the flag and ran back the cubical and snatched the flag off Dick.

That morning in the chow hall we were eating breakfast and Dick Hyatt said he had the strangest dream last night.  He said an American Revolutionary flag floated inside his cubical and draped itself over him and then leaped up and flew out!

We told him he was nuts.  Then we told him he shouldn't have been drinking on duty last night.  Then we asked him what he had to eat before he went to bed.

* I heard recently that some experts believe the "Washington Crossing the Delaware" by Emanuel Leutz is fraudulent.  The blocks of ice like that is more likely in the water in the very north such as Iceland.