Shelbe Gosdin noticed a particular problem one morning last month when she passed the American Legion Post 55 building near her home. The American flag atop the flagpole was in need of replacement.
“I don’t like to see ragged flags flying if I can help it,” she said. “If I can get a new one up, I will.”
But first, the old flag had to come down. That would be no simple task for her, but she enlisted the right people to help.
After she tried to pull it down herself to no avail, and even with the help of a passerby got the same result, she went to the McDonough Fire Department. When knocking on the chief’s door, she found Lt. Greg Moore, who was in the building at the time. He accompanied her back to the site.
“I pulled and pulled, but it wasn’t coming down,” he said. “You could see it wrapped around the pole a few times. So I told her to give me a couple of days and we’d get it down.”
After making a rough estimate based on the building next to it, Moore figured the flagpole was 30 feet or so in height. That would require some special assistance. So he enlisted the help of his associates at Station 52 at Avalon Park. The firefighter/ paramedics assigned to that truck, Tony Griffin and Richard Williams, had some free time with no other calls and rolled over to the building to handle the job. They removed the old flag and replaced it with one Gosdin had acquired.
“I asked the guys to do it when they weren’t too busy, and they did it,” said Moore. “I told [Gosdin] the first chance we got, we’d send a truck over to get it down safely. This was the safest way.”
The McDonough Fire Department gets a call about once a year regarding flag replacement, according to Moore. Using a ladder truck is good training for the personnel involved, he added.
“Any time they can put their hands on the equipment and get the ladder truck up in a non-emergency situation, it is good,” he said. “It helps build muscle memory.” The new flag that is now flying over Post 55 was bought by Gosdin to honor a friend who died last April. She was happy to see the situation resolved, especially the response of the fire department. “It was very quick.”
