Cemetery hosts flag retirement
Sparta. The Sussex County Municipal Utilities Authority worked with the Abbey Glen Pet Memorial Park held the seventh annual American flag retirement ceremony was held on Feb. 24. Veterans group conducted the ceremony.
Wantage /
| 28 Feb 2020 | 03:52
The formal ceremony of retired flags takes place at the veteran’s cemetery in Sparta. (
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Four-year-old Joseph of Wantage scatters flag ashes on his grandpa, Kenneth Fuchs Sr’s grave. (
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A veteran spreads ashes on a fellow veteran’s grave. (
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The seventh annual American flag retirement ceremony was held on Tuesday, Feb. 25 at the Northern New Jersey Veteran’s Memorial Cemetery in Sparta.
The service held in the new reception building of the cemetery was sponsored and hosted by the Sussex County Municipal Utilities Authority SCMUA and Abbey Glen Pet Memorial Park and conducted by members of the Sussex County American Legion and other veteran groups.
The ceremony followed the United States Flag Code Section 176 which states ”The flag, when it is in such condition that it is no longer a fitting emblem for display, should be destroyed in a dignified way, preferably by burning.
Retired flags were collected at SCMUA, Abbey Glen proprietors Derek and Kevin Cooke then used their crematory free of charge to respectfully and environmentally combust the flags to ashes.
“More than 6,000 pounds of flags have been collected and respectfully disposed of in the years of collection,” said Reenee Casapulla, recycling coordinator and safety officer at SCMUA.
Tuesday’s ceremony contained simultaneous flag representation. About 1,000 pounds of retired flags were transported to the ceremony via SCMUA truck, awaiting their reduction to ashes at Abbey Glen while last year’s flag ashes were bagged and would become part of a sprinkling ceremony. Participants were given a red, white or blue sealed bag containing flag ashes. About 50 participants scattered the ashes on veterans’ graves at the Northern New Jersey Veterans Cemetery.