How We Did It

(Click on any of the images to open them in a new window.)

This may seem obvious but first you need to determine how much land you will need for the display. 

The amount of land needed depends on how you space the flags.  The field in Waitsfield has flags placed every two feet in one direction and every four feet in the perpendicular direction. This is a shape that approximates the dimensions of an actual grave.

The field in Waitsfield is larger than the actual space needed for the flags.  We mow an area larger than is needed for two reasons. It gives us room for the inevitable additional flags and it sets the area off from the over grown field around it and makes it look neat and well-tended. 

The amount of land/space needed for 4000 plus flags is 250 feet across ( 126 flags, set one every two feet) by 124 feet deep (32 flags set one every four feet).

It is important to us for the memorial to be crisp and clean and straight and orderly.  In order to accomplish this we square up initial layout so that the corners and rows and columns are at 90 degrees from each other. This also maintains neat diagonal rows. 

We use a three hundred foot tape to layout and place the flags.  You can use shorter tapes but it makes it more difficult as you will have to layout smaller areas initially and then make sure that the adjacent plots are parallel and square to the first one.

Start by picking one corner of the proposed field and place one flag.  Then you can employ Pythagoras and his hypotenuse of a right triangle to square up your field.  Go 120 feet from the corner flag you initially place in one direction and place a flag, and then from the initial corner flag go 160 feet in a direction approximately perpendicular to the second flag.  If you have achieved a right angle the distance (hypotenuse) from the flag at 120 from the starting corner to the flag at 160 from the starting corner will be 200 feet exactly.  You will most likely have to juggle these initial flags around some to get the corner square and your front line parallel to whatever is important to you there-- a side walk or road for example. 

Once you have squared the corner you can then run your tape out through the 160 foot marker to 250 and place another corner flag.  At this time you might as well place a flag at every even two foot integral on the tape. You will have 126 flags along this line.

Then you go to the first back corner that was set at 120 feet and measure 250 parallel to the front line of flags that is 250 feet long and place a flag, then measure 120 from the front corner that is at the end of the  250 front row to make sure your corners are square and your rows and columns parallel.

Then run a tape from the first corner where you started back to the second flag you set at 120 feet back and put a flag at every four foot integral on the tape. Then you duplicate the same process at the other end of the square you have laid out.

Now you have the front row laid out and the two end columns. 

Take the tape up to the front line and move it back to the first flags that are set at four feet back on each end and tighten it up so that it is nice and straight. Lay it down and place a flag at every even two foot integral on the tape.

Repeat this process at each of the end column flags and you will have a perfect layout of square flags set in rows of two feet and columns of four feet.

If this is a one time installation then you are done. If you are planning on making this a permanent installation, you will need a committed land owner and in the spring and summer months you will want to mow an area that is larger than you will initially need as the tragic inevitability of the additional placement of flags becomes necessary. 

We pull all of the flags in the spring and mow the area and place new ones as the winter weather takes its toll on the flags and they start looking ragged. We also make sure the field is mowed for Memorial Day and the Fourth of July and at least one or two more times during the summer and for Veterans Day. This keeps it neat and clean.  With 4000 casualties, taking them out and replacing them four times a year means 32,000 individual actions to pull the flags and replace them.

We generally replace all of the flags with new ones on one or two of these mowing exercises, again to keep it looking neat and orderly and by extension respectful to the families of the fallen and others. No matter whether one supports the war or is opposed or is somewhere in between we are mindful of the profound loss suffered by the people and families these flags represent. When we install the flags we generally have two people doing the measuring and then a handful helping us when we get to the actual placing of the 3800+ flags.