Local scouts join together to properly care for the American flag at Fort Ontario State Historic Site in Oswego. Join members of the Oswego Elks Lodge #271 for a flag retirement ceremony at the fort on Saturday, June 16. The program begins at noon and admission is free for those who bring an unserviceable American flag and other participants.
OSWEGO – The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, Oswego Lodge #271, hosts a U.S. flag retirement program at the flag bastion inside Fort Ontario State Historic Site, 1 E. Fourth St., Oswego.
The event begins at noon. on Saturday, June 16.
Regular admission will be charged and anyone bringing in an unserviceable flag or participating in the program will be admitted free.
The flag program is intended to demonstrate proper disposal of unserviceable flags in a respectable manner.
Esteemed Lecturing Knight Christine Holmes, Esteemed Loyal Knight Robert Holmes, Exalted Ruler Nelson Metz, and other members of the Oswego Elks will conduct the program with assistance from the Girl Scouts and public.
The Elks and Scouts will also deliver a history of the U.S. flag, provide guidance on when and how to display it, demonstrate the proper procedure for raising and lowering the flag, how to pledge allegiance to the flag, and how to fold and store the flag.
Fort Ontario State Historic Site is the site of three colonial British fortifications and the current fort built by the United States in 1839.
It is also the site of three French and Indian War and two War of 1812 battles.
On May 6, 1814, Fort Ontario fell to the British after a six-hour naval bombardment and amphibious assault, culminating in a hand-to-hand struggle for the U.S. flag nailed to the pole by its determined but heavily outnumbered American defenders.
For details about the flag retirement program, contact Victoria Marks at 315-343-4711 or [email protected]. For more information about Fort Ontario State Historic Site, visit www.historicfortontario.com or www.parks.ny.gov.
To learn about its use as an emergency refugee shelter during World War II, contact the Safe Haven Holocaust Refugee Shelter Museum at 315-342-3003 or www.safehavenmuseum.com.
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The Federal Code that states that the preferable means of retiring tattered flags should be burning is not in keeping with modern times. When the Code was written, flags were made of cotton and the burning did not release pollutants such as hydrogen cyanide. The Code should be re-written to say “re-cycled” or buried.
The same goes with the 2nd Amendment, which when written, did not envision 40,000 yearly gun deaths. It too, needs revision.