Marine veteran removes flags from memorial
SHELBY — It was a warm summer evening last month when Daniel “Dano” Paulsen walked by the Flag Park along Main Street. His thoughts turned to his brother, a Marine Corps veteran who at age 31 was killed in a car crash.
Paulsen, also a veteran of the Marine Corps, was so overcome with emotion that he sat on the ground beneath the six flags — one for each branch of the military, plus an American — and cried.
Not until he looked up did he realize that his request had gone unfulfilled. The flags were so tattered he said he called the city two weeks earlier to complain about their condition.
But the flags had not been replaced. “Fine, I’ll do it myself.” Paulsen, 38, proceeded to take the American and Marine Corps flags down from their poles. He considered them unserviceable. “They’re torn, tattered and ripped,” he told the News Journal.
No flag is better than flying a tattered flag
To Paulsen, a tattered flag shouldn’t be flown at all, even if a replacement was on the way.
“If you can’t fly them properly, then don’t fly them,” he said.
For Paulsen, who served three combat tours in Iraq and was discharged from the military in 2005, the American flag evokes memories of Chad, his late brother and fellow Marine.
How the flag was laid over his casket. How it was folded and presented to his wife.
“It’s the respect and dignity not just of my brothers and sisters I fought with, but my own physical brother,” Paulsen said.
After removing the American and Marine Corps flags from the park, Paulsen said he folded them military style and went to the local American Legion post, which retires used flags.
He claims no one noticed their absence. “No one knew. There was not a word in town.”
About two weeks later, Paulsen walked by the Flag Park once more.
He said the American and Marine Corps flags had not been replaced and while he hadn’t noticed it before, the Coast Guard flag was beginning to show signs of wear and tear.
So he took the remaining flags down.
‘Police got involved’ before he could write a letter
“Not to steal them,” Paulsen said. “To fold them properly and write a letter to explain why (I took them down). But before I could get that far, police got involved.”
Paulsen, who moved to Shelby earlier this summer, ultimately was charged with petty theft, a misdemeanor of the
first degree.
He pleaded no contest last month in Shelby Municipal Court, was found guilty and sentenced to two years of probation. Should Paulsen violate his probation, he would spend 30 days in jail.
Paulsen, a disabled veteran who said he suffers from mental illness, said he had planned to write a letter to city officials to explain his situation, how he and his brother had served in the military and what the flags mean to him.
Aside from two — the American and Marine Corps flags — all of them were eventually returned to the city.
“The remaining flags were returned to us via a third party,” Shelby police Chief Lance Combs said in a Facebook post. Combs also said Paulsen offered to reimburse the city for the two flags that had been destroyed.
The youngest of four siblings, Paulsen went to boot camp soon after graduating from Sandusky High School in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks.
Although Paulsen claims to have called the city of Shelby two weeks prior to taking down the two flags to request that they be replaced, Joe Gies, the city’s project coordinator, said Thursday he and other city employees have “no recollection” of Paulsen calling.
Phone call might have ‘slipped through the cracks’
“We get a lot of phone calls here,” Gies said. “Whether or not it slipped through the cracks, I don’t know.”
The city had every intention of replacing the American and Marine Corps flags and new ones had been ordered, Gies added.
“The person I deal with was out of the office on vacation and stuff like that,” he said. “So that was the delay. We always try to keep them up to date.”
As part of his sentence, Paulsen must complete Mansfield Veterans Court, a program that requires at least one year of supervision and treatment, including home visits, curfews and drug and alcohol testing.
The specialty docket also provides mentors to veterans, connects them with other veterans and helps them through the benefits processes, Combs said in his Facebook post.
Paulsen doesn’t agree with being charged in the first place.
“No one does. Even the community is behind me. When they found out who and why, they’re behind me, Paulsen said, adding a Monroeville couple drove to Shelby and paid off his court fines of
$535.
‘It was respect, honor and dignity’
“This is ridiculous. I didn’t steal it. It wasn’t malicious. It wasn’t larceny. It was respect, honor and dignity that the city didn’t do after request. So I did it.”
For now, traveling to Mansfield for veterans court and drug tests will be difficult, Paulsen said. He has a fear of being in vehicles, being that not just one, but two brothers died in car crashes.
It also doesn’t help that Paulsen said he sometimes drove a Humvee in Iraq at night without night vision goggles or the proper firearm. He said the Marine Corps didn’t have enough of either.
But Paulsen’s respect for the flag is unwavering. He said he would have no qualms about taking the flags down once more if he saw that they were unserviceable. mtrombly@gannett.com 419-521-7205
Twitter: @monroetrombly