Widow in fight for flag over grave

Sailor's wife baffled by cemetery rules

Friday, December 29, 2006

KEITHSBURG (AP) - Instead of flapping in the wind, an American flag that once flew over a sailor's grave is now stirring up a different kind of flap in this tiny western Illinois town.

For months, Gayle Tharp flew the flag at half-staff over the grave of her husband, Petty Officer First Class Jerry Tharp, a 44-year-old Naval reservist who was killed July 12 by a roadside bomb in Iraq. His funeral service was at Bethel Baptist Church in Galesburg.

Tharp called the flag a tribute not only to her husband but to all fallen soldiers and planned to fly it until the war ends.

But cemetery officials took it down last week, saying the full-sized flag and staff violate regulations intended to maintain the appearance of the graveyard outside this town of about 700 people, along the Mississippi River southwest of the Quad Cities.

Tharp says she's baffled by the move since her husband died fighting for his country.

"It was OK for him to go to Iraq and represent that flag, it was OK for him to die for you and me and everybody, but it's not OK to have a flag fly over him?" Tharp said.

Greenmound Cemetery trustee Barry Heath says he took down the flag and pole because they violate guidelines that also ban toys, candles and other remembrances that could clutter the cemetery.

Enforcing the rules is tough because graveside tributes are well-intended, Heath said. But with more than 400 veterans of various wars buried in the cemetery, he said the cemetery would be disrupted if all of their families put up flagpoles.

Heath, who also has told Tharp's family to remove a statue of a deer and a bench from the grave, says he won't return the flag and pole to the fallen sailor's family without a court order. He said he took it down once before and "they went right out and put it back up."

Tharp, who also has nearby 20 small flags decorating her husband's grave, said Wednesday she isn't sure what she'll do next. But she said she thinks her husband would have fought to get the flag back.

"Jerry was proud of that flag, he always has been. For Christmas last year, he gave all of us flags," Tharp said. "I don't see how it's improper to fly a flag for a fallen soldier."