The Vigilante of Veterans Field

If you walk past the wooden gazebo at Veterans Field today and cast your eyes upward, you will notice something missing. The tall, silver flagpole stands stark and bare against the Sherman sky. To the casual observer, it might look like a simple lapse in municipal maintenance. But to those paying attention, that empty pole is the focal point of a bizarre, ongoing cold war between a self-appointed local vigilante and a town administration entirely incapable of getting the lighting right.

The saga of the disappearing flag is not a story of vandalism. It is a story of extreme, unilateral patriotism.

The conflict is rooted in a strict interpretation of the United States Flag Code, which explicitly dictates that if an American flag is to be flown 24 hours a day, it must be properly illuminated during the hours of darkness. For a town boasting a $6.5 million budget, placing a spotlight on a pole seems like a rudimentary civic task. Yet, in Sherman, it has triggered a multi-year cycle of nocturnal purloining.

The First Encounter

The mystery first revealed its culprit to me in 2023. While passing through Veterans Field, I personally witnessed a local man in the act of removing the flag from the halyard. When caught, he did not flee. Instead, he offered a calm, principled justification: the flag was not being properly lit at night, and allowing it to fly in the dark was a sign of profound disrespect.

Uncertain of the specific municipal protocols at play in that exact moment, I did not intervene. The flag vanished. A short time later, a new flag miraculously appeared on the pole, presumably installed by the town's public works department. Almost as quickly, it disappeared again.

I eventually conferred with a neighbor, who confirmed she had also witnessed the exact same man systematically removing the colors. We had our culprit, and we had his motive. During a period when lines of communication were still open between myself and First Selectman Don Lowe, I explicitly informed him of the situation: we knew exactly who was taking the flag, and we knew exactly why.

The Bureaucratic Half-Measure

Presented with a highly solvable problem—a resident removing a town asset due to poor lighting—the administration responded with what has become its signature move: a bureaucratic half-measure.

Rather than installing a robust, hardwired spotlight fitting for a town memorial, a meager solar-powered light was affixed to the pole. A new flag was hoisted. At night, the solar light cast a weak, anemic glow—hardly the dignified illumination required by federal code, but apparently just enough of a compromise to halt the removals for a brief period.

However, as winter set in and the solar battery struggled against the shortened, overcast days, the light sputtered impotently. Unsurprisingly, the pole went bare once again for the duration of the cold months.

The Spring Offensive

This brings us to this past week. With the arrival of spring, a brand-new American flag was proudly hoisted above Veterans Field. The town had seemingly restaked its claim on the pole.

The victory was incredibly short-lived. This morning, my phone buzzed with a text message from my vigilant neighbor: "Notice the flag is gone"

While walking my dog this afternoon, I confirmed the casualty. The halyard clinked emptily against the bare aluminum. I conferred with my neighbor once again, who revealed she had just confronted the man about his latest confiscation. His response was as stubborn as it was consistent.

The solar lighting, he informed her, still isn't right. It lacks the necessary power to properly revere the flag. And until the Town of Sherman fixes the wattage, he made it abundantly clear: he will keep taking the flags.

And so, the standoff at Veterans Field continues. It is a uniquely Sherman tale—a resident taking the law into his own hands to enforce a standard of excellence that the town hall refuses to meet. Until the administration can figure out how to properly purchase and plug in a lightbulb, the vigilante will continue to ensure that if the town insists on keeping the flag in the dark, they won't have a flag to fly at all.