All Star Flags August 19, 2011 | All Star Flags

Sometime during the July 4^th weekend, a flagpole was erected on Masonboro Island, a spoil island near channel marker 151 on the Intracoastal Waterway between Wrightsville Beach and Carolina Beach.  The pole, complete with Old Glory, bears a plaque reading “In Memory and Honor of the U.S. MILITARY past and present who Defend our Freedom” and is dated July 4, 2011.  Since the island is state-owned property, the flagpole must be relocated or it will be removed.  A group of boaters calling itself the “Anonymous Patriots” erected the pole and has 14 days to remove the pole.  Carolina Beach Town Manager Tim Owens has offered to provide a new location for the pole if the group will donate it.  We at All Star have offered our services to Carolina Beach to reinstall the pole free of charge to help the group’s good intentions be realized.  Stay tuned!

American Flags and West Virginia Flags to fly at half-staff Saturday, August 20th, in the state of West Virginia in honor of Corporal James Samuel Murray.

According to the office of the Governor:

Murray enlisted in the United States Army at the age of seventeen in 1946. He served in both World War II and the Korean War as a member of Headquarters Company, 3rd Battalion, 38th Infantry, 2nd Infantry Division. While serving in the Korean War, Corporal Murray was captured and marched with other prisoners to the unmarked Suan Bean Korean prison camp in North Korea. He was mortally wounded, while being held prisoner of war, during an Allied air raid on a North Korean supply depot adjacent to the Suan Bean prison camp on April 22, 1951.
 
Unidentified remains of United States servicemen were turned over to the United States by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in the 1990’s. Final identification of Corporal Murray’s remains was made in December 2010, through investigation and DNA testing.