Allan Appel Photo
Why does this 1813 flag have 15 stars and 15 stripes?
The correct answer was not forthcoming. So why Col. (Ret.) Kenneth Gertz (pictured) turned New Haven’s annual Veterans Day Memorial Service into a history lesson.
He often does that.
(Read to the end for the answer)
Two dozen people gathered at Center Church Tuesday morning to hear Col. Gertz’s address and sing along to patriotic music along with members of the mayor’s veterans’ advisory committee.
Corporal Bill Meyers of the New Haven Grays salutes at the flagpole before three wreaths, one from the city, one from the Elks, and one from AT&T veterans.
They were there for the city’s formal annual marking of Veteran Day, traditionally held at 11 a.m. on Nov. 11. That’s when the armistice was declared in World War One, which is the the genesis of the holiday.
Afterwards the vets laid wreaths at the base of the World War [One] Memorial Flagpole on the Green. Earlier in the morning they had placed a wreath at the Vietnam Memorial sculpture at Long Wharf.
Gertz’s address was preceded and followed by performances of patriotic tunes sung by 20 members of the Unity Boys Choir, who took the podium wearing white shirts and snazzy stars and stripes bowties all.
Click on the play arrow to hear a portion of their patriotic medley.
A natural teacher in his thoughtful and organized manner, Gertz explained, as if speaking most directly to the young boys in the choir, that he was a medical corpsman — “pronounced core-man, not corpse-man”, he explained — on a heavy cruiser during the Korean conflict.
He said to this very day “we remember [best] those we couldn’t save,”
He carefully explained the items on the military “altar,” as he termed it, that was set up in front of the ecclesiastical altar. Those items included caps worn by vets from several wars, a range of flags, a folded flag of the kind presented at burial to a vet’s survivors, and the black flag keeping alive the special regard for those soldiers who did not return, living or dead, from their battles.
Then he enumerated: “World War One, 4,000; World War Two, 80,000; Korea, 8,000; Vietnam, 2,000, and Afghanistan, 1.”
At the flagpole, Gertz’s lesson continued as he echoed remarks made by Frank Alvarado, master sergeant (retired) with the Connecticut Air National Guard: “Vets should be thanked every day, not just on Veterans Day.”
“Walk around the flagpole if you have a chance. The last surviving veteran of World War One died two years ago,” he said. Some 1,500 World War Two vets pass away daily, he added.
Now to the flag question’s answer: Gertz said that in 1813, Old Glory had 15 stripes and stars for the original 13 colonies-turned-states plus the two that had joined subsequent to the signing of the Constitution.
He explained how after the battle at Fort McHenry, the women of Baltimore fashioned a 32-by-40-foot flag to replace the tattered ensign, about which Francis Scott Key wrote what was to become our national anthem; and how the new flag was important to fly over the battered fort after the fight to let the British know Americans were still in control.
Gertz used every opportunity to teach not only reverence for vets and their sacrifice — Veterans Day is to honor those who died in service, whereas Memorial Day is for all who have served — but American history.
“Every year,” he opined, “the history books get smaller and smaller.”