Menominee County veterans to hold Flag Day flag-retirement ceremony in Keshena

Veterans and American Legion members will gather at 5 p.m. June 14 in Veterans Park in downtown Keshena for a Flag Day flag-retirement ceremony, a public observance built around honoring worn American flags with proper protocol. The event gives Menominee County residents a place to see an old ritual carried out in the open, at a civic space that sits at the center of Keshena.

At the ceremony, local veterans will retire unserviceable flags in a dignified way, following the practice the American Legion adopted in 1937. Legion guidance says the approved method for disposing of unserviceable flags is burning, and the ceremony has been an integral part of Legion ritual ever since. Many Legion flag-retirement observances begin with the presentation of colors, the Pledge of Allegiance and the National Anthem before the flags are retired.

The June 14 gathering comes on Flag Day, which marks the June 14, 1777 adoption of the Stars and Stripes by the Continental Congress. Federal law recognizes Flag Day and urges annual observance each June 14, giving the Keshena ceremony a national context even as it remains rooted in local veterans’ service.

Residents do not have to wait for Flag Day to dispose of worn flags. A flag-retirement receptacle outside the Menominee County Veterans Service Office in Keshena is available year-round, allowing community members to drop off flags that are damaged, faded or no longer suitable for display. The office says its mission is to inform and educate veterans, dependents and beneficiaries about state, federal and local benefits and to help with applications.

That year-round drop-off ties the ceremony to everyday service in Menominee County. The Menominee Tribal/County Veterans Center in Keshena has also been used for veterans-related services, and the Veterans of the Menominee Nation says it is open to all veterans regardless of race, creed, gender, sexual orientation or discharge status.

The setting matters in Menominee County, where the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin says its seat of government is in Keshena and its reservation shares nearly coterminous boundaries with Menominee County. Downtown Keshena functions as a shared civic space, and the Flag Day ceremony adds another visible marker of that connection between tribal, county and veterans’ institutions. In 2009, more than 400 flags were retired in Keshena, many taken from graves of Menominee veterans, underscoring how this ritual has long carried both public and memorial meaning.