The Montgomery County Council reportedly upset quite a few when they replaced a flag honoring American missing soldiers with the official LGBT multi-colored flag.
EXCLUSIVE: Veterans are upset the POW/MIA flag was removed from Veterans Memorial Plaza at the Mont. Co. Exec. Office Bldg in MD.
County officials replaced it with the #LGBTQ #Pride flag. I’ll report why feelings are hurt & what’s being done about it. Tonight 11pm @nbcwashington pic.twitter.com/XuHoFQDlce— Shomari Stone (@shomaristone) June 10, 2019
I am all for hanging the pride flag and I 100% support the LGBT community, but don’t you dare put it in placement of the POW/MIA flag. Especially outside a Veteran Memorial, is the most disrespectful things I’ve seen in a long time. pic.twitter.com/hY7OJLLEXH
— BostonxBruins88 (@BostonxB) June 12, 2019
From dailycaller
Led by the county’s first ever LGBT council member Evan Glass, the POW/MIA flag was removed from its flagstaff outside the Maryland county’s executive office building Monday morning, reported NBC Washington. The move drew immediate criticism.
“When I was in Vietnam, I was there six days before two guys were missing in action, and they still haven’t found their bodies,” John “Bill” Williams, a Vietnam veteran, said to the television station.
The POW/MIA flag is officially recognized by the U.S. Congress “as the symbol of our Nation’s concern and commitment to resolving as fully as possible the fates of Americans still prisoner, missing and unaccounted for in Southeast Asia, thus ending the uncertainty for their families and the Nation.” It consists of a silhouette of a prisoner of war (POW) with the words “You Are Not Forgotten.”
“I wasn’t happy about it at all because the park is supposed to be a veterans park,” he continued. “People died. Now they took it down and put another flag up.”
The flagpole, located on Veterans Memorial Plaza in Rockville, only had enough ringlets to display one flag, but a second set was added by Tuesday morning so that both flags could fly.