VFW Backs Proposal to Honor Military Monthly
Capitol flag would fly half-staff on set day
By Richard Powelson
Knoxville News Sentinel, DC Bureau
April 17, 2004

WASHINGTON - The Veterans of Foreign Wars is backing a proposal by Tennessee Reps. Lincoln Davis and John J. Duncan Jr. to honor military killed in all conflicts monthly rather than just annually on Memorial Day.

In all conflicts since 1775, when the Revolutionary War began, more than 1 million U.S. soldiers have died, according to Pentagon figures.

The idea for some kind of monthly federal honor for all military killed in U.S. history came from U.S. Rep. Lincoln Davis, a Pall Mall Democrat. He was in Iraq in February with a delegation checking on U.S. troops' needs and their progress, and noticed service personnel getting on his return military flight with a casket containing an American soldier.

Davis talked to his staff about Congress doing more to honor the dead. Their initial idea was filing a bill, House Concurrent Resolution 400, to select one date each month to honor them by flying the main flag at the Capitol at half-staff. Congress would set the date.

"Over 1 million Americans have paid the ultimate price to protect our country, its citizens and our ideals since the time of the American Revolution," Davis said. "This gesture, while small, hopefully honors the sacrifices that brave American men and women have made to protect our nation and our freedom in the spirit of patriotism."

He asked Duncan, a Knoxville Republican, to give the bill early bipartisan support, and Duncan agreed. Duncan also visited soldiers in Iraq early this year.

VFW spokesman Joe Davis said of the bill: "We support all efforts to broaden public awareness of the tremendous sacrifice our military men and women have made for 228 years."

But he said the VFW, with 2.6 million members among its affiliates, would like to expand the monthly honor to all U.S. flags at all federal buildings across the country, and to all state and city poles with U.S. flags.

Federal law since the 1970s has established Memorial Day as a holiday on the last Monday each May to honor dead veterans as part of a three-day weekend. The date before that was fixed on May 30. The VFW supports efforts to return to the May 30 celebration but conceded that Congress is unlikely to change the date.