Elgin seniors mark Flag Day with solemnity

Halfway between mega-holidays Memorial Day and Independence Day lies Flag Day on June 14. It's not often celebrated.

But this year The Greens of Elgin, a 90-unit condominium complex for seniors, commemorated it by dedicating its first flagpole - and by looking at Wednesday's baseball-field attack in Alexandria, Virginia; wartime sacrifices and Vietnam dissent.

The Greens group raised the stars and stripes on their new pole with the help of volunteers from Elgin VFW Post 1307, Elgin American Legion Post 57 and Bartlett Boy Scout Troop 66, recognized the 10 veterans who live in the 15-year-old complex, looked through a scrapbook of Korean War-era memories and enjoyed a recital of patriotic music.

"Our flag gives me a thrill, said 94-year-old World War II veteran George Brunkalla. "Our country shouldn't be so divided."

During World War II, he was unloading ships in New Guinea when an Army captain complained of a broken watch. "I fixed it with a pocketknife, so he sent me to work in a machine shop truck," said Brunkalla, who ended up owning a machine shop after the war.

Noting the shooting at Republican lawmakers' baseball practice, emcee James Didier said that "patriotism comes in many colors," especially during times of danger.

"To the rescue came people who did not see 'party,'" said Didier, a former president of Judson University. "If you ever have an opportunity to pull together, it's around the flag."

"It's our flag and it will never change," added 85-year-old Jonas Batchellor, a retired cheese store owner who served in the Air Force during the Korean War.

Robert Anderson, 85, fired artillery guns - and dodged incoming shellfire - during the Korean War before making a career in real estate.

"It's terrible that the flag is being abused and not respected," he said. "Seeing our flag brings back a lot of memories, some good and some bad."

Paul Ortiz, a 66-year-old retired health worker and personal chef, recently bought a 10-by-6-foot flag and had it hung proudly in The Greens dining room. But he recalled being of mixed mind about what the flag stood for when Americans were dropping napalm on Vietnamese villages. He had been drafted into the Army and assigned to work with severely wounded men at Walter Reed Military Hospital.

When the protesters burned flags, "I was out there in the middle of it," Ortiz said. "I had the weekends off in Washington, D.C., and as a 19-year-old I went where the young people were."

With rioting, protests and assassinations, Ortiz said, "you didn't know what would happen from one day to the next. It was an era of madness."