United States Flag Retirement Plaza

United States Flag Retirement Plaza

My name is John Kovach from Allegheny County,Pa. I was a United States Marine from June 1971 to July 1974 with 24 months overseas service nine of them in GTMO. I was also in the USMCR from June 1975 to December 1977 and the creator of the below mentioned site.

On June 14, 2006 Allegheny County, Pa. dedicated a new United States Flag Retirement Plaza located inone of the county parks. An essay contest was held and the site was officially named “By The Dawn’s Early Light” United States Flag Retirement Plaza. This is a site specifically dedicated for the purpose of conducting dignified ceremonies for the retirement of worn or faded United States Flags. This site is designed for use by any citizen, civic, scouting, veteran or other public or private organization. Its use is free of charge and is any anyone desires to use it for a flag ceremony they simply go to the park office and reserved it for their selected date. Each June 14th is set aside by Allegheny County, Pa. for the specific purpose of conducting a county United States Flag Retirement Ceremony. Don Dade of The Dade Forum of The AVN has donated setting up a web page for this site. To view this page the address is: www.engineersvietnam.com/flag/index.html.

• Read more about the site and how you can help…
  • I was wondering if you could help me in two ways.

    1) This years ceremony to be held on June 14, 2008 I would like to make a truly “National” United States Flag Retirement Ceremony. It is our intention to try to aquire a worn , faded or unsrevicable United States Flag from every state in The UNited States, Iraq and Afganistan and place them in the retirement area in the order of admittance to the union to show all America and the world that we are indeed “The United States of America”. This is a public ceremony and anyone is invited to attend. We are looking for flags 5×8 or smaller that may have flown over a military base or historic site in that particular state accompanied by information on the site. I am hoping you can through your publication pass this information to any contacts you may have in the various military installations or other suscribers so that we may accomplish our mission to represent each state.

    2) This site was also designed to be a work in progress and we are trying to collect donations to have a mosiac mural placed in the wall on each side of the American Flag Pole. One side will be desdicated to our military and those men and women who have given their live to protect our nation and theo other side dedicated to America’s Citizens as our flag represents all. The cost of this mosiac will be about $10,000.00. We would like to have culvert pipe placed in the ground by each branch or service flagpole (including Merchant Marines for WWII service) so that the ashes retired may be shwon total respect and placed in this area. We would like to construct a pedastal above this area and place the brach of service medallion on it. The top will be hinged so the the ashes may be placed inside. We also would like to have two Revoloutionary War soldiers on bases stand guard on each side of the wall near the state and county flagpoles.
    I will stop here and if you or anyone you share this with would like more informaion on the site or wish to donate my email address is: jlk1953[at]verizon.net