Veterans teach children about flags, freedom

KAYSVILLE — Four veterans schooled a group of bright-eyed Burton Elementary Bulldogs on the importance of flag etiquette, freedom and patriotism during a morning assembly last week at the Kaysville school.

"Each one of you are a special person, each one of you," said Willie Hunsaker, a retired Navy veteran and member of the Veteran of Foreign Wars, to a crowd of students in the school's gymnasium. "You can wear any kind of clothes you want to wear to come to school. In other countries they can't do that. And you can go home and see your mom and daddy, after school. Some of them can't do that either. And you've got very special people here (teachers) because we fought for our freedom, but freedom isn't free."

Last Friday, Hunsaker and three other Veterans of Foreign Wars members from Brigham City, Ray Reese, Floyd Kling and Allen Jensen, were invited to speak at two patriotic assemblies at Burton Elementary School. For several years the group of veterans have been touring elementary schools around the state — mostly in Box Elder County — teaching students about freedom and, most importantly, about flag etiquette, hoping to influence the youth.

"It might be a piece of cloth," Hunsaker said of the flag. "But it's what it represents . . . it represents the strongest nation in the world."

He told the students to always respect the flag, especially when it marches past them during a parade. He said that the crowd should stand and give a salute for the first flag in the procession, and after that it's their choice.

Third-grader Blake Bennion helped the veterans show his fellow students which white star on the flag represents Utah — the 45th star, the one farthest left on the bottom row of stars.

The veterans also showed the students the proper way to fold the flag. After 13 folds, the flag was the shape of a triangle, or a general's hat that George Washington would have worn.

Hunsaker joined the Navy when he was 17 and went into World War II.

"I wasn't very old, I was more of a kid than I was an old person, but my country needed me and I fibbed a little bit with my age so I could get there," he said. "Now war isn't fun. War is H-E-double toothpick — do you know what that is?"

Hunsaker said war isn't easy, but he wouldn't trade his experiences for all the money in the world, and he wouldn't go through it again for all the money in the world.