I’ll Take it From Here

Courtesy Photo | Members of the 304th TC, 462nd MCB, and Camp Arifjan Emergency Services Battalion render honors during the playing of the National Anthem to open the Veteran’s Day ceremony.  

CAMP ARIFJAN, KUWAIT

11.12.2010

Courtesy Story

1st Infantry Division Sustainment Brigade

CAMP ARIFJAN, KUWAIT - On Sept. 11, 2001, at the end of a very long and emotional day, then Lt. Neil Skow of the New York Fire Department, Battalion 8 raised the American and FDNY flags at ground zero of the World Trade Center attacks.

At this same site 10 members of his battalion, including the battalion chief Tom DeAngelis, gave their lives helping other victims of the day’s terrorist attacks escape the wreckage. The flags continued to fly over the ground zero site for the next four months until Skow, also a Lt. Col. in the Army Reserve, deployed to Iraq with the 413th Quartermaster Battalion. Skow lowered the flags and brought them with him.

Since then, the flags have been transferred from unit to unit spending the next nine years in either Iraq or Kuwait.

In a stirring ceremony held this Veteran’s Day at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait the flags again changed hands. The flags transferred from the 304th Transportation Company, Joint Logistics Task Force 7 to the 462nd Movement Control Battalion.

The 304th TC is completing their 10 month tour to Kuwait and Iraq where, in addition to conducting the mission to draw down equipment and personnel, they have been the most recent custodians of the flags flown over ground zero by Skow nine years earlier.

The 304th TC, a United States Army Reserve unit from Springfield, Mass., is commanded by Capt. Rodger Woodruff who was honored to care for the flags over the past 10 months. “We will all remember where we were on that Tuesday morning, having a member of the 304th [TC] who was present at ground zero makes this honor even dearer to us,” said Woodruff during his remarks.

The 462nd “Liberty” Battalion from Trenton, N.J., carries on the mission of honoring those who made the ultimate sacrifice that day by continuing to proudly care for the flags.

The flags now symbolize not only the sacrifice of those 10 firefighters but, in Skow’s own words, the “collective, outstanding accomplishments [of] Army soldiers answering the call of our nation in a time of need.”

During the ceremony, Lt. Col. Michael Butler the 462nd MCB Commander noted, “As a New Your City policeman who was at Ground Zero, it is a deep honor for me to carry these flags.” He also thanked the 304th TC for their stewardship of the flags.

For now, the flags are expected to continue their time in the Middle East, changing hands from unit to unit, until the U.S. mission here is complete.

• Date Taken: 11.12.2010
• Date Posted: 11.12.2010 03:48
• Story ID: 59959
• Location: CAMP ARIFJAN, KW