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Community Corner

VFW Post 543, Veteran's Services Join Forces

Officials to distribute service flags to families with children or spouses serving or killed in the armed services at no charge.

A gold star often means something good.

Not for parents or spouses of servicepeople who hang a flag with a gold star on a white background with a red border on their front door or in a window.

The Gold Star service flag means that their child or spouse has been killed in action serving his or her country.

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A similarly-styled service flag with a blue star indicates that a parent or spouse has a child or spouse on active duty in the armed forces.

The flags provide “recognition for the pride and the sacrifice of that household,” according to Charles Culhane, commander of Woburn WFW Post 543. He got the idea to distribute the flags.

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VFW Post 543 and city Veteran’s Services Director Larry Guiseppe are working together in a new effort to distribute both gold and blue flags to residents who meet the above criteria and want one, at no cost to residents.

Culhane got the idea to provide the flags two months ago, he said last week. While he was visiting his mother-in-law in a rehabilitation facility, Culhane said he talked to another woman there and found that she had lost a son in Vietnam. Culhane got her a Gold Star service flag. The family was very appreciative, he said; they never had one.

He gave another Gold Star service flag, he said, to a mother whose son who died in Iraq in 2007.

 “I said, ‘Let’s revitalize this, especially for Memorial Day,'” Culhane said. The banner was designed in 1917.

The flags came in two days after Memorial Day, late on Wednesday afternoon, to Guiseppe’s office.

Culhane ordered a dozen gold star flags, three dozen blue star banners and a dozen flags with two blue stars, where two members of a family are serving on active duty in the armed services. Culhane said he has heard that one Woburn family has three members of their immediate family in the service simultaneously.

To receive a flag, call the Woburn veteran’s office at 144 School St., North Woburn, in the , at 781-897-5825. Make an appointment, Culhane said, “to assure your proper banner will be awaiting you.” Requests will be filled on a first-come, first-served basis. Service flags will be delivered to residents, if need be, according to Culhane.

If the stock of service flags runs out, “We’ll order more,” Culhane said. The first order cost the VFW post about $400, he said. He anticipates that the total cost will run the post about $1,000.

The number of residents from Woburn who are serving in the armed services is not available, according to both Culhane and Guiseppe; it is considered private information.

“VFW Post 543 is proud to underwrite this revitalized program,” Culhane wrote, “for those patriotic families who know and understand the cost of freedom and proudly serve our country.”

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