thedrifter
06-01-03, 07:54 AM
Mysterious flag-raiser - 1 of them - takes credit
By PHYLLIS SPEIDELL, The Virginian-Pilot
© May 31, 2003
SUFFOLK -- It takes more than one patriot to raise a flag -- and may take dozens more to keep it flying.
Michael Beebe, 56, is one of at least two mystery patriots who installed a U.S. flag on a 15-foot pole on a remote waterfront section of Tidewater Community College's Portsmouth campus.
The flag, easily seen by travelers heading south on the Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel, was a simple, but stunning, patriotic salute on the Suffolk side of the James River.
Beebe, a network engineer for a government contractor in Qatar, shares credit with the still-unknown flag planter who first installed a flag at the site.
In September 2001, Beebe, a Portsmouth native, was working at NASA-Langley and admired the flag as he exited the bridge-tunnel each day. Sometime during 2002, the flag was taken down and another put up. Beebe, who walked his dogs at the campus on weekends, noticed when the second flag grew tattered and replaced it with a new one.
As Operation Iraqi Freedom was beginning, the third flag disappeared, just as Beebe accepted a yearlong job in Qatar. He, along with his wife, Bobbie Beebe, and his sister, Bonnie Beebe, spent a Sunday morning in March putting up another flag.
``Everyone in the family knew how happy I was about that darn flag being there,'' Beebe wrote from Qatar. ``It was one of the proudest things I had ever done.''
Beebe's determination may come from his 21-year Army career or from his battle with cancer 10 years ago.
Before he left for Qatar in mid-May, the Beebes drove across the bridge-tunnel and saw his flag had vanished again. He had no time to go back and put up another one.
Diana Bailey of the Army Corps of Engineers said the flag's location is a Superfund site, an area of safety concern because it was an ordnance depot during World Wars I and II.
``We were, however, sensitive to the passion displayed by whoever put it up and made a conscious decision not to take it down,'' she said.
College maintenance personnel, concerned that the flag was being flown in foul weather and was not lighted at night, removed the pole and flag.
Beebe's goal now is to get the flag back up the way it was before: no lights, out in the weather and all by itself.
``I assure you that another flag will go up there one day -- it might be 360 days from now, but it will go back up,'' he wrote.
Beebe also wants to find who raised the first flag.
``We are investigating whether we can put the pole and flag back up with the appropriate measures taken to give the flag proper respect,'' said Frank Dunn, executive assistant to the president of Tidewater Community College. ``We hope we might be able to make it work.''
Reach Phyllis Speidell at 483-9161 or phyllis.speidell@pilotonline.com
Sempers,
Roger
By PHYLLIS SPEIDELL, The Virginian-Pilot
© May 31, 2003
SUFFOLK -- It takes more than one patriot to raise a flag -- and may take dozens more to keep it flying.
Michael Beebe, 56, is one of at least two mystery patriots who installed a U.S. flag on a 15-foot pole on a remote waterfront section of Tidewater Community College's Portsmouth campus.
The flag, easily seen by travelers heading south on the Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel, was a simple, but stunning, patriotic salute on the Suffolk side of the James River.
Beebe, a network engineer for a government contractor in Qatar, shares credit with the still-unknown flag planter who first installed a flag at the site.
In September 2001, Beebe, a Portsmouth native, was working at NASA-Langley and admired the flag as he exited the bridge-tunnel each day. Sometime during 2002, the flag was taken down and another put up. Beebe, who walked his dogs at the campus on weekends, noticed when the second flag grew tattered and replaced it with a new one.
As Operation Iraqi Freedom was beginning, the third flag disappeared, just as Beebe accepted a yearlong job in Qatar. He, along with his wife, Bobbie Beebe, and his sister, Bonnie Beebe, spent a Sunday morning in March putting up another flag.
``Everyone in the family knew how happy I was about that darn flag being there,'' Beebe wrote from Qatar. ``It was one of the proudest things I had ever done.''
Beebe's determination may come from his 21-year Army career or from his battle with cancer 10 years ago.
Before he left for Qatar in mid-May, the Beebes drove across the bridge-tunnel and saw his flag had vanished again. He had no time to go back and put up another one.
Diana Bailey of the Army Corps of Engineers said the flag's location is a Superfund site, an area of safety concern because it was an ordnance depot during World Wars I and II.
``We were, however, sensitive to the passion displayed by whoever put it up and made a conscious decision not to take it down,'' she said.
College maintenance personnel, concerned that the flag was being flown in foul weather and was not lighted at night, removed the pole and flag.
Beebe's goal now is to get the flag back up the way it was before: no lights, out in the weather and all by itself.
``I assure you that another flag will go up there one day -- it might be 360 days from now, but it will go back up,'' he wrote.
Beebe also wants to find who raised the first flag.
``We are investigating whether we can put the pole and flag back up with the appropriate measures taken to give the flag proper respect,'' said Frank Dunn, executive assistant to the president of Tidewater Community College. ``We hope we might be able to make it work.''
Reach Phyllis Speidell at 483-9161 or phyllis.speidell@pilotonline.com
Sempers,
Roger