The parents of a 23-year-old soldier killed in Afghanistan say a vets group that oversees a memorial in a small New Jersey town “has hurt us deeply” for refusing to fly a flag in honor of their son.
Amy and Patrick Moore say they just wanted to fly the “Honor and Remember” flag over the Bordentown Veterans Memorial to remember their son, Army Spc. Benjamin Moore, killed in a Jan. 12, 2011, bomb blast, as well as others who died fighting for freedom.
“My husband and I can’t teach honor,” Amy Moore, 49, of Robbinsville, said, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. “It’s a personal thing in someone’s heart.”
“Maybe they have it, but not in a way I understand it,” she added. “They have hurt us deeply.”
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She is speaking out after the Bordentown Veterans Committee refused to reconsider its decision not to fly the flag at a meeting March 6.
The newspaper reported Sunday that committee chairman Bruce Throckmorton told the Moores at the meeting that the “Honor and Remember” flag could “dilute the power of the American flag” and “open the floodgates to the next flag and the next flag.”
“I don’t feel comfortable putting my hand into the name of my son” etched in gold on a black granite wall of the memorial, the mother said after the committee's refusal. “That flag is a visual reminder to everyone of the price paid for our freedom.”
“Memories fade, even for a mother and father who lost a child, and it frightens us,” she told the Inquirer. “But the flag reminds everyone of the men and women who lost their lives, from the Revolutionary War to the present day.”
The “Honor and Remember” flag -- with its gold star and images of an eternal flames and folded stars and stripes -- was created by George Lutz of Virginia after his son Army Cpl. Tony Lutz was killed by a sniper in Iraq in 2005.
“Honor and Remember” flags presented by the Moores to municipal officials are flying at three other Bordentown locations.
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