Did You Know: U.S. Flag Retirement
Podcast Transcription
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Welcome to another episode of PFCU’s Money Talk Podcast. This episode had a special guest to talk about the ceremony to properly dispose of American Flags. Remember that Flag Day is June 14th so, take a listen to learn more about this ceremony and where you can attend one to see how it’s done.
Maddy: Thank you for joining me today, we have John Kayanek here. Did I say it correctly?
John: It is Kayanek.
Maddy: Kayanek! I knew it was going to mess it up. I literally said before we hit record that I was going to mess that up. Well thank you John for joining me today, I really appreciate your time.
John: You’re welcome.
Maddy: So, if you just want to give a little background about yourself and where you come from, that would be awesome.
John: Okay, well, I was born in Owosso, MI. My mother died when I was 18 months old and my aunt raised me in the Flint area so, I went to Beecher High School, graduated in 1968. Right after graduating from high school, I was drafted into the military, the army and from the army I was down in Fort Rucker, Alabama. I was in a helicopter unit, refueling helicopters there and then after that I went to Germany for a year 70 to 71 and served in Germany ordering supplies for helicopters and everything else. And then I got out, I had a couple years in GM so I went back to General Motors Buick Engineering and worked there for 30 years. I had a side business, audio, video, and satellite business and from that business I basically retired from GM after 30 years so I could do more with my business on the side and everything. And my son was getting married one day and we need a hall to rent so, I went to the American Legion, and they were talking to me, they said, did you serve? And I said, sure. They said, well, if you served, you can join the legion and you could get the hall at half price. That kind of lit my eyes up so, I joined the American Legion and I seen what those guys done, and I told my wife, I said, after his wedding I’m probably going to quit because I haven’t got time for it. But then after I seen what these guys do and everything, it just broke my heart, you know that I couldn’t help them. I basically stayed there, went up to all the meetings. After the first year, I ended up as the second Vice Commander and after the second Vice Commander, everybody wanted me to be Commander so I took the job as Commander and I served there for 7 years and then I was basically going to move to Arkansas because I wanted get out of Michigan. My son had his wife and she was from Arkansas so, we were going to move and all of a sudden my son buys a snow mobile and we’re not going to move now. So, we stayed and everybody at the Legion, they wanted me back as Commander and so, I re-ran as Commander and I won the Commander spot again and here I am back as Commander of the American Legion. And basically what I wanted to say though is July 14th, we’re going to have a flag retirement ceremony and it’ll be 7 o’clock. We’re going to have hotdogs, pop, chips and it’s all free and we’d like everybody to come out just to see our little flag ceremony and how we do it and everything and how we retire the flags. The proper way to retire a flag, we fold the first flag, militarily wise, and then we’ll put it in the kennel, the fire.
Maddy: Okay, okay, so first of all, thank you for your service. I feel like you have quite the story, quite the background and we could probably sit for a while and talk about it but we won’t do that today. So, thank you. And you mentioned, you were talking about the ceremony, you said, is it June 14th or July 14th?
John: June 14th.
Maddy: June 14th, okay, because June 14th is Flag Day.
John: Correct.
Maddy: So that’s when you do the ceremony.
John: That’s correct.
Maddy: Could you, you said you fold the first flag and that you burn them. Could you talk a little bit more about that because I don’t think a lot of people realize what a proper retirement of the American flag looks like and what that process is.
John: Well, basically we’ll have 5 officers in a square and all the officers will inspect one of the flags and if it’s torn, battered, discolored and everything else, they’ll pass it to each officer. Each officer will recognize it as a flag that needs to be retired then we’ll have two other officers that will fold the flag properly the way the flag is supposed to be folded. I don’t know if you’ve seen them at funerals and how they fold the military flag. And then from there we will take the flag and put it towards the fire pit and place it in the fire pit and then after that, the rest of the flags, we’ll basically take and just put them in the fire.
Maddy: Okay, you mentioned inspecting the flags. How can people know when the flag should be retired like if they have one at their house or at their business?
John: If you see a little bit of a tear in the flag or a discoloring or anything like that, that’s when you should basically, you know, retire your flag and get another flag because it’s improper to have a flag out there that’s torn, battered or whatever.
Maddy: Right, okay, makes sense. Could you give some insight as to where people can drop off their flags. I’m sure the American Legion is somewhere that they can and actually at PFCU people can drop of their flags as well. Is there anywhere else that you know of that people could go to?
John: Yeah, I mean you could go to any VFW, American Legion, they’ll do it. At our American Legion one of our Sons of American Legion, Jake Nearing, he basically took a dumpster, not a dumpster, but like a trash can, he painted it all up and he put “flag retirement” so, and it’s outside so people can come and put their flags in the bin.
Maddy: Nice. Is there a way, let’s say someone has a flag that they’d like to retire and they can’t, for whatever reason, drop it off anywhere, is there a proper way that someone could personally retire a flag?
John: Not personally. They should be retired properly.
Maddy: Okay.
John: There’s places to drop them off, there’s all kinds of American Legions.
Maddy: Right. Okay.
John: Don’t personally do it.
Maddy: Okay, don’t do that.
John: Don’t do that.
Maddy: Okay. Good to know.
John: It’s not proper.
Maddy: Do you want to share a little bit about maybe what else the American Legion does?
John: Well, we basically send kids to student trooper school and the SALS have sent a couple of them, our sons. And we also send them to boys state and girls state. We’ll have them come in and give a little speech and if a kid wants to go to Washington DC and they can’t make enough money, we’ll supply some of the money. We do help veterans. We have a service officer and our Legion on Fridays, from 9am-3pm, that he’ll help any veteran get benefits, hearing aids or whatever so, we do a lot and we do have a little social life there with all the veterans.
Maddy: Yeah, very cool. Alright, is there anything else you wanted to share while we’re here?
John: August 31st we’re going to have a car show it’s going to be 9-3. It’s going to be classic cars. This is how we raise money to support our events and anybody, any charities or anything that we’re giving money to. Also, we have Euchre tournaments. It’s on our Facebook page American Legion post 294 dot com. And you can go to that page and you can see all of our events. We have Euchre, we have 80s dances, you name it, we put it on. You just look at our Facebook page and you’ll be able to see what we do.
Maddy: That’s awesome.
John: I forgot to mention our hall. We have a beautiful hall that’s been redecorated. And we hold weddings, all kinds of events. We would like the public, the public is welcome to come rent our hall out. It rents a lot cheaper than a lot of these barn weddings. Come to our Euchre tournaments in the hall, come to any event in the hall, you can do open houses in the hall, we also have funeral dinners in the hall. You’re welcome to rent the hall, so, all public people are welcome to rent this hall.
Maddy: Awesome! And you said people can go to the ceremony this year on June 14th?
John: Yes, the public is welcome. We would love the public to come, we would like to see a big show of public support for this and it’s going to be a lot of fun. So, come on out, we’re going to have pop, hotdogs, chips. You’ll have a good time.
Maddy: Can you say again where that’s located?
John: It’s 3440 Morrish Road, Swartz Creek, MI. Just north of the Meijer, off I-69 on Morrish Road.
Maddy: Well thanks for coming.
John: Well thanks for inviting me.
Maddy: Yeah.
John: I appreciate it.
Maddy: Yes, of course. Anytime.
Thank you again to John for joining me for this episode and sharing all of that wonderful information. Please follow their Facebook page- American Legion Post 294 to stay up to date on what they have going on. Now he had mentioned in the interview some of their events that they put on, but when we weren’t recording, he was talking about even more of the really neat events that they have. So, please follow their Facebook to stay up to date on all of that, they do a little bit of everything. And remember again, the public is welcome to attend the flag retirement ceremony on June 14th! Thanks for listening.
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