Man finds flag covered in writing at flea market and uses the opportunity to honor a soldier
You can always find pretty cool things at an antique store or flea market. While you’re definitely likely to run across a rare and quirky item, it’s not every day you find something with deep meaning at those places. But sometimes items that get lost or misplaced end up at flea markets and we don’t even realize how important they are. That’s what happened to Walter Brown.
Walter Brown was shopping at a local flea market when he noticed something unique.
Upon noticing the item, he asked Lanie, his wife, to check it out too. There, they beheld an American flag, covered in handwriting.
The flag was covered in personal messages and after reading a few the couple knew that they had a really special item on their hands.
The Browns were willing to spend anything on this item they deemed important.
Lanie explained to Today.com:
“If they asked us for $100 we would have given them a $100 bill. It was priceless to us because we knew it meant something.”
But they didn’t have to shell out that much. The seller only asked $5 for it.
After buying the flag, they immediately took it home to their son.
Their son is a Marine, so they figured he might be able to tell them what was up with all the writing on the flag. Their son informed them that this flag was a tribute flag, dedicated to a fallen Marine.
The handwriting was different messages written by different people who served with the Marine. They wrote things like:
“You will be missed by all, but never forgotten.”
Another example is:
“We’ll always remember the sacrifice you made. God bless.”
Eventually, the family figured out that the flag was dedicated to Lance Cpl. Fred Maciel. He had died during a helicopter crash in 2005, serving in Iraq. In total, the flag had 24 individual messages commemorating him on it.
Once the family realized the sentimental value of the flag, they knew that it had to go back to the soldier’s family.
They quickly tracked down Patsy Maciel, Fred Maciel’s mother. But after finding her, they wanted to give her this memory of her son’s life with some ceremony. The Brown’s felt that she deserved a bit more than to open an envelope.
Walter Brown explains to USA Today:
“It’s a lot deeper than just putting it in a mailbox.”
The two families arranged to meet up at Maciel’s gravesite, but the attendees were much more than just them.
Patsy hadn’t even known that this tribute flag existed for her son until the Brown’s reached out to her. The meeting at the gravesite was the first time that she got to see it, and there were plenty of other people who showed up just to honor her son.
Years after her son’s death, getting this flag back helped Patsy heal.
Pasty said to Today:
“If this happened any earlier, there’s no way I would have been able to go out there and receive it because I was an absolute basket case. Now, my heart is at peace.”
It’s a miracle that all of these events fell into place.
These two families will forever be bonded by this experience.
You never know what you’ll find at a flea market, but maybe it will help someone else too.
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