Parade of Flags in Storm Lake honors fallen veterans

The flags went up over the Buena Vista County Courthouse lawn, but the bigger question hanging over Storm Lake’s 53rd annual Parade of Flags Dedication was who will keep the memory alive when the current volunteers, veterans and family members are gone. With six flags slated for dedication this year, the ceremony made the work of remembrance look less like a holiday ritual and more like a civic duty that has to be handed down.

The memorial drew a forest of U.S. flags in warm weather, turning the courthouse grounds into a field of names and service. Members of the Iowa National Guard, including F Company, 334th BSB, helped raise the U.S. flag to half-mast before the program continued with opening and closing prayer from Pastor Bradley Ketcham, a wreath placement by Robert Iverson of the Storm Lake American Legion Riders, and a performance of the Armed Forces Medley by the Buena Vista Community Theater troupe A Touch of Broadway.

Sgt. 1st Class John Felton, the keynote speaker, made the ceremony personal. A Storm Lake native who returned home in 2022 after a 22-year Army career, Felton said he was born in Storm Lake, grew up in Arizona and enlisted in Phoenix. His service took him through work as a field artilleryman, a paratrooper and a tactical psychological operations specialist, with assignments in the 82nd Airborne Division, the 173rd Airborne Brigade, the Southern European Task Force and the Joint Special Operations Task Force.

Felton told the crowd he comes back each year to look for the flag bearing his grandfather’s name, a tradition his uncle passed down to him. He said walking among the flags can make visitors the first people to read a fallen veteran’s tag in a long time, sometimes ever, and urged attendees to read the names and remember that each banner represents a life and a story.

The ceremony also depended on a long list of local hands. Hudson Barlow, Kyle Bartz and Kay Kessler were among the volunteers who helped erect the flags, while families, students, clergy and veterans filled the lawn around the courthouse. That intergenerational mix gave the parade its force, because the tradition can only survive if younger residents learn why the rows of flags matter and take responsibility for them in the years ahead.

The Parade of Flags Foundation has long described its purpose as purchasing, presenting and displaying dedicated flags on patriotic holidays, and this year’s observance showed how much that mission still rests on local participation. In Buena Vista County, remembrance was not left to a speech or a single ceremony. It was carried in the hands that raised the flags, the names read along the rows and the people willing to return next May and do it again.