Posted on 09/18/2009 2:04:37 PM PDT by pillut48
FORT WORTH – Dan Walker, an Army war veteran who was honored for gathering and burying a U.S. flag that was burned in protest during the 1984 Republican National Convention in Dallas, has died. He was 81.
Walker, who was captured by TV cameras carefully retrieving the flag remnants so they could be buried properly, died Wednesday of prostate cancer at his Fort Worth home.
Walker told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram after the incident that he felt compelled to act after seeing someone try to stomp out the fire.
"I didn't want someone sweeping it up with a broom and putting it in an ashcan," said Walker, a veteran of World War II and the Korean War.
The man who burned the flag was convicted under a Texas law banning desecration of the flag. His conviction was thrown out in 1989 by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that flag burning was a constitutionally protected free speech.
(Excerpt) Read more at dallasnews.com ...
It won't be much longer until we return the flag you graciously cared for to its rightful position in the minds of men.
We're sorry for letting this country become infested with, and run by, the same scum who burned that flag. Very sorry.
God speed.
God Bless you, Dan Walker. Rest in peace.
RIP.
A man with honor which is an uncommon trait in this day and age. May you rest in peace - ‘a fellow veteran’.
So many Americans now wouldn’t understand or appreciate what Mr. Walker did.
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