Four military flags are missing from a Brooks County Veterans memorial. The man who oversees the memorial thinks someone stole he Army, Marine, Air Force, and Prisoner of War flags.
They may have thought they were getting valuable copper from the flagpoles, but they'd be wrong.
This Brooks County Veterans Memorial usually is decorated with flags but now they're gone. Jim Thomson who watches over the memorial believes the Army, Marine, Air Force, and Prisoner of War Flags and staffs were stolen.
"Hopefully I'll get my language cleaned up," said Thomson. "Those sorry rascals is as far as I want to go."
He noticed four flags missing a couple of weeks ago. Three flags remained, but Thomson went ahead and took those down.
The memorial has about 500 bricks with the names of veterans. He says someone may have taken the flags as souvenir.
"The person may have taken it in that manner that's pretty selfish," said Thomson.
He says or it could be for copper. Quitman Police say that's a possibility or it could be kids.
"The staff themselves especially at night probably look like metal they're painted gold someone may have mistaken them in the dark or dusk that they were copper," said Thomson.
Some folks I talked to say if indeed the flags were stolen it's very disrespectful to those who serve our country.
"We'll all dig in our pockets," said Thomson. "We certainly want any help we can get. We have put in an order for them and when they come in we'll have to pay for them."
Elizabeth Jones came over to the memorial and dropped off a donation while we were shooting the story and the whereabouts of the flag are a mystery and the VFW hopes it won't happen again.
Jim Thomson says it'll cost about $500 to replace the missing flags.
They order new ones each year but the missing flags were brand new.
Copyright 2011 WALB. All rights reserved.
Copyright 2011 WALB. All rights reserved.
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