The Flag Case We Gave a Veteran Friend's Widow

Walt Nowak died in the middle of January at 81. He was Navy, a friend of my brother Ray's from the post, and a man who shook your hand like he meant it. A few days after the funeral I stopped by his house. Marge, his widow, had his burial flag on the kitchen table, still folded in the plastic sleeve the funeral home put it in. She had set it down between the sugar bowl and the salt shaker because she did not know where else to put it.

I drove home thinking about that sleeve. Then I went into my bedroom, opened the bottom dresser drawer, and took out my father's flag. Earl Thorsen was Navy in the Korean years and died in 2009. His flag had been folded in that drawer for sixteen years and I had never bought a case for it. I am not a veteran, and I say that plainly. I am the civilian in this family who does the shopping.

That night I ordered two Americanflat flag cases, the 5x9.5 folded flag display case. One was for my father's flag. The other was for Marge. They arrived the first week of March. Ray and I drove over to her place together with the box, and I set mine up the same afternoon on the brick mantel in my living room, which is where it has sat for about eight months now.

Here is what the Americanflat case actually is, because I want you to know before you order. It has an engineered wood frame with a plexiglass front. It is triangular, 13.2 inches high, 26.4 inches wide and 3.3 inches deep. It is made to hold a 5x9.5 foot burial flag, which is the size the funeral detail hands to the next of kin. It comes with hardware so it can hang, but ours both sit on a flat surface. It weighs 3.8 pounds.

Getting the flag inside took me about ten minutes at the kitchen table. The flag goes in as it came off the detail, triangle to triangle, and the clear front closes over it. I did my father's first. Then I did Marge's at her table while she stood in the doorway with her arms folded and watched. She did not say much. She said, "That's better," and then she went and put the coffee on.

His flag had been folded in that drawer for sixteen years. I had never bought a case for it.

There is nothing fancy about the Americanflat case and I think that is why Marge likes it. It is a plain triangular frame with a clear front and no ornament on it. It does not try to say more than it can back up. On her bookcase it sits between a small clock and a photograph of Walt, and it reads as furniture in the room rather than as a shrine. That matters more than people expect when the person you are giving it to is grieving. You want them to be able to walk past it on an ordinary Tuesday.

Now the parts I would change. Engineered wood is not solid oak, and if you run your thumb along the edge of the frame you can feel the difference between this and the oak case in the post hall. The plexiglass front holds every fingerprint. I wiped mine with a paper towel in the first week and put a fine scratch in it, so use a soft cloth and not the sleeve of your shirt. And at 26.4 inches wide this needs a real shelf.

I would also measure before you order. 26.4 inches is wider than most people picture when they are looking at a photograph on a screen. A standard bookcase shelf will usually take it. A narrow end table will not, and neither will the top of a small writing desk. Measure the spot, then buy. That is the only mistake I can see somebody making with this thing.

Both of ours are sitting on a flat surface, so I cannot tell you how one looks hanging on a wall. The hardware is in the box if you want to go that way. What I can tell you is that on a mantel or a shelf it stands on its own flat bottom and does not rock, and it has not been knocked off either one in eight months.

One more thing worth saying. Marge has not moved it since March. It sits on the bookcase and it stays there, and that is the highest compliment she pays anything. My father's flag is on my mantel and I look at it every morning when I come down for coffee. I have not once wished I had bought something fancier or older or heavier. What I wish is that I had done it in 2009, when the flag came home from the funeral and I put it in a drawer.

What I'd Tell You If We Were Sitting at My Kitchen Table

If we were at my kitchen table with the coffee going, here is what I would say. If your father's flag is folded in a drawer, get it out. If your mother's flag is still in the sleeve the funeral home gave you, get it out. Nobody is going to do it for you, and there is no good reason to leave it there another year. I would buy the Americanflat case again tomorrow. It is not the finest piece of furniture in my house, but it is the one I look at every morning. Order it, set it up on a Saturday morning while the light is good, and put it somewhere you will pass it every day. That is the whole of it.