Stars, stripes have stories to tell
Every flag has a story. Diania Bieber’s is no different.
Her porch railing is draped with a red-white-and-blue sash, and there are mini-American flag Christmas lights dangling from Bieber’s roofline. Her windows are decorated in patriotic tube lighting, and when the sun sets, the yard glows with patriotism.
Fourth of July at this Spokane Valley home on North Farr Road is pretty, but isn’t easy. Here, young American patriotism co-exists with the worst of careless, young American violence. Bieber has one son, Roger, away in the Air Force and another, Jeffery, who was stabbed to death two months ago in an argument involving a teenage girl.
She puts up a Fourth of July display every year because she likes to see a little something special when she walks up to her house. This year, however, the decorations were more purposeful.
“My son in Biloxi training in the Air Force was born on the Fourth of July. He doesn’t get to come home,” Bieber said. “I put everything up early this year because I miss him. I miss them both.”
She smiles, remembering when Roger thought the whole world celebrated his birthday with fireworks and backyard barbecues. Just one house on the block does now, but it is a fine display.
Every flag has a story. Peter Bickford’s flag is safely tucked away. His brother Lonnie’s is still unfolding.
The Bickford brothers are Spokane natives and Army reservists. Peter, 29, spent the last year in Balad, Iraq, as a door gunner in a Chinook helicopter. He was due home in April, until the Pentagon announced he’d stay for three more months.
His mother, Holly, had flown a flag for Peter in the front yard of her home on East Baldwin Avenue for the entire time he’d been away, 15 months. There wasn’t much left of the flag when news of Peter’s extended tour came in April, but Holly vowed not to take it down until her oldest son came home.
Peter came home, not at the end of June as his mother feared, but in May. The Army had three groups of soldiers with Peter’s expertise and didn’t need them all. The early release was luck of the draw and returned him to his wife and 2-year-old son in Olympia.
The flag, which was so worn its stripes were unraveling, is down, retired like the flag Holly previously flew for her husband, Lyle, also a veteran.
“It is so ugly it is beautiful,” Holly said of Peter’s flag.
A new flag has gone up for Lonnie, 22, who is driving an Army dump truck and living at the private game reserve of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in Baghdad. He called his mother recently just to hear her voice, Holly said. Violence is picking up in Baghdad. Lonnie told his mother he just needed to touch base.
She told Lonnie her prayer chain was working for him. His flag is flying.
Every flag has a story. Herman Meier’s is one of habit.
Meier served 22 years in the Army, all of them within the shadow of an American flag. The flags weren’t always pretty. In Vietnam, the 1st sergeant and his soldiers flew whatever they had. And what they had sometimes was little more than red, white and blue cheesecloth. When the war ended, he became an instructor at West Point. The flag was ever present.
He retired, moved to Spokane Valley and opened a little shop on Wellesley Avenue in Trentwood where he could tinker with antique gas engines. Life wasn’t bad, but there was a hole in his life only a flag could fill.
“We’ve just always done that all those years in the Army,” Meier said. “Once you’re supposed to put a crease in your pants, I guess you always do.”
Meier told a friend he was looking for a flagpole, and the next day, there was one more than 40-feet tall lying outside Meier’s shop.
The flag flying from the pole is from a Navy destroyer on which Meier’s son sailed. When it wears out, he has another ready to fly, a burial flag for a fallen Marine.
The Marine flag belongs to a friend of Meier’s. It has been ceremoniously folded into a triangle and tucked away in a drawer for quite a while. That isn’t right, Meier said. The flag should be flown. It has a story to tell.