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‘He’s Done a Great Job’: Local Eagle Scout Creates U.S. Flag ‘Drop Box’ at Firehouse

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[The NewCanaanite.com Summer Internship Program is sponsored by Karp Associates.]

A New Canaan High School class of 2026 student recently completed a project to honor and respect the U.S. flag. James Bakal for his Eagle Scout project created a box that residents can use to ensure that the flags are disposed of properly. “It means that the town has a place where the flags can go, showing the local residents that they can do the proper thing in the world by retiring them,” Bakal said. 

The tricolor drop-off box is located in front of New Canaan Fire Department headquarters on Main Street. “This project means so much to me,” said Bakal, whose grandfather served in World War II and who has two cousins in the military who have been deployed to Afghanistan in the past. “It means that the town has a place where the flags can go, and 10,15 years down the line, there will be a place in New Canaan for it to still happen.”

It’s a project that Vietnam War veteran Mike McGlinn, commander of VFW Post 653 in New Canaan, has been trying to get in town for “several years,” he said. 

“I went to the Post Office twice to try and get an old mailbox and paint it, but that didn’t work,” McGlinn said.

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PHOTOS: New Canaan Memorial Day Parade and Ceremony

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For U.S. Marines Major Charles Paksi—a decorated veteran with three combat deployments to Somalia and Afghanistan—there’s one word that captures what motivated his friend Domingo Arroyo Jr. on Jan. 12th, 1993. The men were part of an 11-member patrol near the Mogadishu airport in Somalia as part of an effort to feed the hungry there, and Arroyo, a 21-year-old private and already a veteran of The Gulf War, had about four months left before his discharge. 

“An hour into the patrol, the children and civilians dispersed, creating an uneasy silence,” Paksi told about 250 people gathered Monday in Lakeview Cemetery on a sunny and comfortable morning. He continued: “The enemy subsequently executed a textbook ambush—gunfire erupted from the buildings to our left and right and our rear. We were being baited into the obvious action: Move through the intersection to the front.

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New Canaanites Gather at Lakeview Cemetery To Honor Veterans 

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Dozens of New Canaanites gathered at Lakeview Cemetery on Saturday to plant more than 1,500 flags honoring every locally interred veteran who has served the United States in both combat and non-combat positions. Organized on behalf of VFW Post 653 by New Canaanites Chris and Frances Wilson, the community event saw residents come together on a beautiful May morning to honor our veterans. “This is one of the greatest events the town puts on,” Post 653 Commander Mike McGlinn said. “There are about 200 people and 20 community groups who come together to help out the VFW… It’s a tremendous thing for a small town like New Canaan to have this done.”

The New Canaan Fire Department, New Canaan Police Department, Boy Scout troops 45, 31 and 70, Cub Scout packs 70, 45 and 7, Girl Scouts of New Canaan, SLOBs, Democratic and Republican Town Committees, New Canaan YMCA, New Canaan Chapter of the National Charity League, Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) and Hannah Benedict Carter Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. The gravestones with flags is the setting in which the annual Memorial Day observance ceremony is held.

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PHOTOS: 2023 Memorial Day Parade and Ceremony

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Prior to Memorial Day this year, it had been 10 years since New Canaan’s John McLane addressed a crowd that gathered to remember and honor our nation’s war dead. 

A U.S. Army captain in Vietnam, McLane observed in a keynote address during VFW Post 653’s annual Memorial Day ceremony held Monday in Lakeview Cemetery that “much has changed, not all for the better.”

“Today, divisions are growing,” McLane told more than 350 residents gathered at the cemetery on a sunny, breezy morning following the Memorial Day Parade. 

“Traditions and values are being called into question,” he continued. “Yet I would respectfully suggest that in the quiet, serene settings like this one all across America, citizens can still come together and feel a renewed sense of unity and purpose, harmony and hope. This is what makes today, Memorial Day, so special. We honor the people in New Canaan cemeteries, not for their fame and fortune, not for their achievements, but what they so generously gave: Their faithful service in, for some, their highest and last full measure of devotion.”

McLane called Memorial Day “the most expensive day on the calendar.”

“Throughout history, those who go into harm’s way have asked two questions,” he said. “First, will I die today?

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New Canaan Marks Veterans Day with VFW-Led Ceremony at Town Hall

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When he was a young man growing up in Seattle and thinking about joining the military, U.S. Army Col. Jeffrey Erickson’s father mentioned that his own uncle—Walter “Bud” Anderson—had been in the Navy during World War II. Erickson, now director of the Army Cyber Institute at the United States Military Academy in West Point, N.Y, decided to delve into the family history. 

He discovered that his great-uncle Bud had been aboard the USS Nevada in Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941—the day the Japanese attacked the United States, drawing the nation into the war. 

Reciting his great-uncle’s experience that day in Bud’s own words, Erickson told more than 100 people gathered at Town Hall for New Canaan’s annual Veterans Day ceremony about the moment a soldier came on deck with distressing news. “He was all shook up and said the Japanese planes were bombing the ships,” Erickson said, relaying his great-uncle Bud’s own words before the rapt attendees, which included local veterans, members of VFW Post 653, New Canaan Police, Fire and Emergency Medical Services personnel, municipal workers, representatives from the Hannah Benedict Carter Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution and others.