Flag Day: Riveting War Stories Retold in NYC

FREEDOM REIGNS: Crew members of the US merchant ship Maersk Alabama gather around a US flag while celebrating that the captain of their ship which had been held captive by the pirates had been freed on Sunday. (Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images)

NEW YORK—It was an exceptionally patriotic day on Monday with the U.S. Army celebrating its 235th birthday and the nation celebrating Flag Day. Veterans new and old turned out at Vietnam Veterans Plaza on Monday for some red-white-and-blue pomp and circumstance.

Veterans Mickey Shields, a private who fought in World War II during the invasion of Algiers, and Steve Savarese, a retired Master Sargent of U.S. Air Force for 22 years, shared their personal stories and the harrowing circumstances they faced at times of war.

Mickey Shields, 88, entered the Army when he was 20. Private Shields fought for the British during the invasion of Algiers, North Africa. Shields was aboard USS Leedstown, a troop transport ship under Operation Torch, which was torpedoed by Nazi German airplanes on November 8, 1942. The ship sank the next day.

“I was in the hospital, and my outfit was leaving for invasion, then an officer came by and I said get my clothes because I was not going to another outfit,” said Shields about his 39th Combat Team.

Shields lost his wife, vision in his right eye and some teeth in the World War. When asked if he thought he would ever live this long, Shields answered, “No, I didn’t. When I was 20, I was thrown out of a fox hole in North Africa by a bomb.”

Sargent Savarese briefly served in the navy before he enlisted in the Air Force and recalled the time when they had to evacuate a burning ship off the Coast of Puerto Rico. The soldiers on the ship were on the ships fan tail awaiting orders to evacuate when suddenly a Dutch naval frigate responded to their mayday distress signal and towed the ship to a naval base in Puerto Rico.

“My last thought before we got rescued was, will I have to jump off the fan tail, which was like 60 feet off the water, will I have to jump into the water and be eaten by sharks,” said Savarese.

Flag Day’s origins and the army’s go back to beginning of the nation. On July 14, 1775, the Continental Congress created the Continental Army to secure the new republic’s independence in months leading up the Revolutionary War. The day now marks the birth of the U.S. Army.

The ceremonial program handed in Lower Manhattan on Monday began with a quote from President Obama:

“But the world must remember that it was not simply international institutions—not just treaties and declarations—that brought stability to a post-World War II world. Whatever mistakes we have made, the plain fact is this: the United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms,” said Obama, in a quote from when he received the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway.