The American Standard Bearer

How could you possibly verify the authenticity of this flag? Maybe an eye-witness could be found, "Yup, I’d recognize it anywhere – 50 stars and 13 stripes – just like the one I saw."

Minnesota buyer balks, Pentagon flag back up for sale [Associated Press]

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) – The Minnesotan who made the top bid for an American flag in an online auction has backed out of the sale and the flag was put back up for auction.

David Nicholson of Orange, Virginia, put the flag up for auction on eBay, saying it had been flying over a construction crane at the Pentagon during the September Eleventh terrorist attack. He said he was selling the flag to raise money for his kidney cancer treatment.

Twenty-six-year-old Todd Schimmel of Mound, Minnesota, won the auction yesterday with a bid of $371,300. But Schimmel backed out after it was questioned whether the flag was really flying during the terrorist attack.

Schimmel didn’t return phone calls from The Associated Press. A request for comment e-mailed to the eBay account of the high bidder brought a brief response: "Flag is a fake I’m not accepting."

Nicholson said he called Schimmel, and that Schimmel told him he did not want the flag and hung up on him.

A recent poll conducted for Washington College by the public affairs research firm of Schulman, Ronca & Bucuvalas, Inc. found that of 800 American adults surveyed, less than half even had an inkling that George Washington was the General who led the rag-tag Continental Army to victory over the British in the American Revolution.

The following is a story from the Associated Press. Do you suppose that these perps had a clue whose grave they were desecrating? Not a chance.

March 21, 2005

TROY, N.Y. — Vandals who struck a cemetery last week targeted the grave site of Uncle Sam, police said.

Five monuments at Oakwood Cemetery were overturned, two urns smashed and a flag pole knocked down between Thursday night and Friday morning. The flagpole and one of the urns adorned the grave of Samuel Wilson, a 19th century businessman who helped give the federal government the nickname "Uncle Sam."

A flag was also burned at the cemetery.

"For these vandals to trash the grave site of such an internationally important symbol of America is unthinkable," said Oakwood Cemetery Board of Trustees President Terry Page.

Wilson (1766-1854) was a prominent upstate New York businessman who supplied beef to American troops during the War of 1812. His crates were stamped with the letters "U.S." and soldiers joked the letters stood for Uncle Sam – a name they eventually hung on the government.

Political cartoonist Thomas Nast later created the lanky, bearded Uncle Sam who would adorn recruiting posters and come to symbolize the United States.

Police in Troy, across the Hudson River from Albany, said the vandals could be charged with felonies including desecration of a cemetery and second-degree criminal mischief.

Officials are offering a reward of $1,500 for information about who damaged the cemetery.