Field of flags in Virginia Beach says what words cannot

VIRIGNIA BEACH

One by one, the dead of two wars have become this. Four thousand eight hundred thirty-five U.S. flags rippling in the breeze.

Volunteers shoved one flag for each American military death in Iraq or Afghanistan into the earth outside of Providence Presbyterian Church last weekend. On some, the red stripes and blue backgrounds have faded to pastels. Other flags, flapping for more recent deaths, still reflect bold navy blues and deep red stripes.

Some have been with this Field of Flags since it was first displayed at a church in Somers, Conn., in October 2005.

That time, it took 2,231 flags.

When the traveling display came to this church in Virginia Beach in December 2006, it called for another 1,000.

Now, the field demands 4,835 little flags, according to the organizers' count, updated as of Dec. 10.

Where Whitehurst Landing and Providence roads cross, the flags sprawl over a grassy embankment for a couple hundred feet, a simple display that allows visitors to conjure their own form of poignancy: War is necessary, war is wasteful, support the troops, bring them home.

The flags don't tell visitors what to think. They stand for remembering the dead, from Sgt. Leonard W. Adams through Pfc. Casey P. Zylman. And their families.

Jo-Ann Hornyak, who came up with the idea for her Connecticut church, said she was concerned that the flags would be taken as a political statement. But by most, they haven't been. Her sister, Nancy Lindgren, is a member of Providence Presbyterian, so when it got too cold up north for the display that first year, it came to Virginia Beach.

This visit makes the 22nd time the display has been put up, the same flags - plus ones that were added to represent new deaths - having been set up in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Florida. The display is booked into 2010.

There is no charge to visit, no one there to interpret the meaning, no audio tour, not even a gate to walk through.

Laminated sheets tacked to a wooden board name every service member who died in the wars. And in a mailbox nearby, a freezer bag contains a notepad and a pen for people to leave comments.

While the flags were in Connecticut, Hornyak said, a woman with New Hampshire license plates pulled up and checked the board. After a few minutes, she walked up and said, "I just found my son."

Then she hugged and thanked the women at the display.

"With that," Hornyak recalled, "she got in her van and drove off. We just stood there with tears streaming down our faces."

On a drizzly morning in Virginia Beach a few days after the flags were staked out, a cool wind blew. It ruffled a section of the patch; those became still, and others started flapping.

Faded flags. Pristine new flags. Flags in the middle of the bunch, in the rows along the street.

They make no sound, but all together, planted in the ground, they say a lot.

Lon Wagner, (757) 446-2341, lon.wagner@pilotonline.com