KINGMAN – The Kingman Marine Corps League has led the way when building and maintaining the downtown Veterans Memorial Park. At a recent meeting the membership of the league chose to fly a new flag over the Kingman Veterans Memorial Park. The League consists of veterans from Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan. They wanted to try and fly one flag, year round, that would honor all veterans. The images symbolized on this new flag provided one flag that appears to accomplish this mission.
The POW-MIA flag was adopted by our government in 1972 and was authorized to be flown over government buildings. The flag was meant to commemorate those military members who were missing in action (MIA) or prisoners of war (POW). There is even a government protocol on when and how the flag should be displayed. The words YOU ARE NOT FORGOTTEN appear at the bottom of the image. This flag is also flown over many military service clubs and civic organizations.
As military history expanded into the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and now the Persian Gulf, there are less POWs and MIAs but there are more military members suffering from what used to be called shell shock. Today some call this Traumatic Brain Injury, and PTSD or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Because of these new injuries several organizations came up with a design for Wounded Warriors. The local Marine League Detachment chose the one Wounded Warrior flag that does not identify with any one organization. This flag has the image of a kneeling soldier with the words “Heroism – Honor- Sacrifice”. The silhouette of this kneeling soldier is fitting as it can be seen over and over again in photos of service members who kneel to honor a falling comrade. The words wounded warrior also are fitting as it denotes the suffering and pain of so many who returned with injures that can’t be seen but are felt by the military member and their family.
The words ALL GAVE SOME and SOME GAVE ALL appear at the top and bottom of the flag. This tells us of the sacrifices made by the warriors who fought in the various battles.
The image in the middle of the flag bears the letters KIA for KILLED IN ACTION. This flag is produced by a company under the title KIA Honor Flag Organization. This image also has a gold star which symbolizes the Gold Star families. The Gold Star Family is any family who has lost a family member in a war. We also refer to some of these family members as Gold Star Wives and Gold Star Mothers. There is an association called Gold Star Mothers that was started in 1928. Gold Star mothers even have their own flag. Gold Star Mothers are honored on September 29.
On February 17, members of the Marine Corp league with the assistance from the Kingman Young Marines held the monthly park clean up and also replaced the 3×5 American flag with a new larger American flag and also raised the new Honors flag.
