Author: Chris Rodda, MRFF Senior Research Director
Date: Wednesday, November 1, 2017
No, this isn't a story about the current situation with North Korea. It's about another kind of unbelievable story - a story exhibited in a museum run by the U.S. Air Force that is so far-fetched that it is completely impossible to believe.
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On October 17, the Air Force Enlisted Heritage Research Institute (AFEHRI) at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama posted some new photos on its Facebook page of an exhibit...
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After the photos of this exhibit were posted on the AFEHRI's Facebook page, emails began coming in to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) from airmen and others who were very disturbed that an exclusively Christian flag was being displayed in a military museum...
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According to the story on the exhibit's sign, this flag was supposedly retrieved from the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) in 1960, after having been left outside, leaning against the corner of an alleged chapel, when the DMZ was created. The DMZ was created in 1953. That would mean that this flag was left outside in the elements for seven years...
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Now, say by some act of divine intervention, this chapel flag, as well as the U.S. flag that the young airman Luke Holcomb and his friends supposedly retrieved, did miraculously manage to survive those seven years of being left outside. Well, there are still a number other problems with the story.
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I decided to call the Air Force Enlisted Heritage Research Institute and ask what documentation they had for it. I was told to email the museum's curator, so I sent him an email saying that the story was extremely difficult, if not impossible, to believe, and requested whatever documentation or other information they had about the story's origin.
A few days later I received a response from the director of AFEHRI, CMSgt Emily E. Shade, in which she wrote:
"As a result of your inquiry and after looking at the framed wording, I concur that the dates and story seem inaccurate. We have removed the photo of the wording from the exhibit, as well as from our Facebook page."
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But, switching from my historian hat back to my MRFF hat, the problem now is that all they removed was the sign, making what remains now almost worse - a display of an airman standing next to a large Christian flag for no apparant reason at all.
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