Vets Club Seeking Assistance with Cemetery Programming

By SARAH ROBERTS
COOPERSTOWN

A service provided by the Cooperstown Veterans Club of which many folks may not be aware is the annual installation of roughly a thousand flags at the burial sites of local veterans who have passed away.

Floyd Bourne, commander of the Veterans Club, spoke about the importance of the task and the pride club members take in performing this task.

“We do our best to make sure that any service member gets their due honors. It is our honor to do it, and our duty to do it,” Bourne said. “We’ve done it every year and we will continue to do it.”

According to the American Legion, the Cooperstown Veterans Club has more than a hundred official members. This does not include the membership of the auxiliary organizations attached to both the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars, or the Sons of the American Legion—which is made up of both sons and daughters of Legion members, all of which have a presence in Cooperstown as well.

According to Bourne, the Veterans Club is “just a place where servicemen can get together and talk.”

“I can assure you, they don’t just sit around and tell war stories,” he added.

“Every person who has served in the military understands that when their time comes they will be honored by those who are remaining,” Bourne replied, when asked about the importance of placing flags on the gravesites of veterans. “Some of these cemeteries have not been visited by anyone other than us in decades, but those members are still there and we are still going to show that respect.”

Flags placed remain out from before Memorial Day to just before Veterans Day. After the flags are removed, they are burned in a ceremony in keeping with flag code, which states, “The flag, when it is in such condition that it is no longer a fitting emblem for display, should be destroyed in a dignified way, preferably by burning.”

Bourne pointed out that Westlake ACE Hardware in Cooperstown annually donates a box of flags to the effort, and collects retired flags from the community year-round. They then give those flags to the Veterans Club to burn in a proper ceremony.

“We have such a quantity now, so we have multiple flag burns a year,” Bourne said.

More than 56 flags are placed each year in three cemeteries in the Village of Cooperstown. In addition, the Veterans Club installs more than 370 flags in the Town of Middlefield and more than 570 in the Town of Otsego.

In addition to the placing of the flags, the Veterans Club is seeking help from the community in caring for a number of old cemeteries in our local communities. According to Bourne, there are a lot of little cemeteries that are no longer in active use and therefore get few to no visitors or upkeep other than that provided by the Veterans Club.

Bourne explained that some of these sites contain the bodies of Civil War and Revolutionary War veterans that have been largely forgotten, and the wear of nature on these sites threatens the integrity of the resting places of these soldiers.

He shared a personal story of a cemetery he and his wife “adopted,” and how a large tree fell and damaged some of the headstones. Bourne used his personal chainsaw, laboring to clear out the tree and putting things back in order as best he could.

Bourne said that if anyone would like to know where any of these cemeteries are—in order to visit or to assist with upkeep—they can contact the Veterans Club for further information.

“It is a labor of love and a labor of due respect,” he said.

The Cooperstown Veterans Club can be reached via telephone at (607) 547-8282. While their efforts to place the flags does not hinge upon donations from the public in any immediate sense, monetary support for their mission would be greatly appreciated and helpful, according to Bourne.