Northampton Township Honors 2 Military Residents

The Northampton Township Supervisors had a Welcome Home Army flag exchange and an Air Force flag placement ceremony at the Boards February 28th public meeting.

First, was welcome home for Army Major Kevin Loughnane who returned from his deployment to Afghanistan. He returned stateside on February 5th and it was Kevin’s 3rd deployment to a combat area. The first was to Iraq in 2009 and the second one was also in Afghanistan in 2012. He is currently at Fort Wainwright Alaska and could not be here personally to once again retrieve his Army flag and replace it in our display with his US flag so his mother Pat and dad Bill came to retrieve Kevin’s Army flag and replaced it with Kevin’s US flag.

Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick’s Veterans Advocates Peter Chong and Verne Rider presented a commendation and a flag that was flown over the Capitol and State Senator Tommy Tomlinson’s Policy Director Ryan Skoczylas did the same from the PA Senate.

The second ceremony was a flag placement for Air Force 1st Lt. Kelsey Glover. Lt. Glover recently deployed to Qatar from MacDill Air Force Base Tampa, FL. Her mom Kay and dad Kevin along with her brother and sister Paul and Katelynn placed an Air Force flag for Kelsey in the display where it will stay until she returns from her deployment to exchange it.

The Northampton Patriots Flag Program began 15 years ago on April 23, 2003 when the Board of Supervisors introduced the Northampton Patriots flag program to honor Northampton residents serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Due to the expansion of the program it now includes Afghanistan and other hostile areas.

There is a flag display in the public meeting room displaying both military and American flags. At one time, all were military flags, each representing the branch of service and identifying the resident with a yellow streamer with his or her name affixed to it. As each one returns home the Township return his or her military flag and replaces it with an American flag. Former Supervisor Pete Palestina administers the program as has now recognized 85 residents with a flag ceremony since 2003.

A video of the ceremony can be viewed at the following link: https://youtu.be/uuMfH_vYqbc