HOULTON, Maine – Former U.S. Airforce Sgt. Donald Holston started a petition this week to get a 16 x 20 inch canvas image of the American flag displayed in the new VA Health Center in Presque Isle.
Several years ago, Holston, 79, captured the image of the flag flying over his Houlton farm one night and had it reproduced on canvas as a gift to the VA Health Center in Caribou where it hung for four years.
When the VA moved to its new outpatient health center on Main Street in Presque Isle in April, Holston’s flag image was missing and he was told it was not going back up in the new center, he said.
“The flag has special meaning to us service people,” he said. “It stands for the people who gave their all to keep our country free. Not hanging it is as bad as burning the flag.”
An official at the Veterans Administration in Augusta notified him that his American flag image and an Irish flag image he also gave to the VA in honor of his grandfather were nowhere to be found, according to Holston.
Jason Carter, a VA spokesman, said that Maine VA made every attempt to return the canvases to Holston.
Holston disagrees.
By attempt, they mean they went through boxes and couldn’t find it, he said.
“They did send me a very small picture I gave my doctor but not the two 16 x 20 canvases,” he said. “They lost those.”
Carter said the VA tries to make all clinics as uniform as possible, so artwork displayed at new facilities is limited to a small selection of approved directional signage and appropriately framed art.
There are currently two actual American flags at the new clinic, one outside on a pole and one in the entry way as part of the President and Secretary of the VA portrait display, Carter said.
“I’m not talking about hanging artwork with roses here,” Holston said. “This is a photograph on canvas of our flag.”
Originally, Holston had 50 of the canvas images made, giving one to U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, the West Haven, Conn. fire department where he served for 30 years, families of police officers and firefighters killed in action, several Houlton businesses and the Aroostook County Sheriff’s Office to name a few.
Whenever there is a tragedy, Holston sends one to honor the families of victims. He’s considering sending one to firefighter Corey Comperatore’s fire department. Comperatore lost his life protecting his family from bullets at a Donald Trump rally in Butler, PA on Saturday.
“He’s a hero, I may send it to his fire department from a fellow firefighter,” he said.
Although Holston was unable to convince the VA to reinstate the image in Presque Isle, he is not giving up, he said.
“I’ve still got a lot of fight in me,” he added.
To get things moving, Holston created a petition this week and is hoping to get 2,000 signatures. When people read the petition, they are baffled about why the VA will not hang it, he said.
The petition is asking the VA for permission to hang in public view the 16 x 20 photo image of the flag enclosed in plastic to meet sanitation criteria.
“Some people are helping me and we will get a bunch of guys and take the petition up to Presque Isle and let them tell us why they can’t hang the flag in our clinic,” he said. “The people signing the petition want it hung and I am doing my best to make it happen. It’s the little things like this that really matter. ”
