Flag program raises Old Glory at senior center

Pride swelled within World War II veterans Nathan Shapiro and Anna Rogovin on Friday during a flag-raising ceremony at Handmaker Jewish Services for the Aging.

The residents at the center’s Rubin Community, 2221 N. Rosemont Blvd., were among some 75 people who celebrated the American and Arizona flags that were raised by the Tucson Police Department’s Honor Guard.

Officers Charles Foley, 47, and Bradley Clark, 56, are the co-founders of Flags for the Flagless, a nonprofit formed in 2014 to raise Old Glory on barren flagpoles in Tucson.

Foley comes from a long line of veterans, and Clark was a 20-year combat Army veteran. “The American flag belongs to all of us. The flag represents our country — freedom, responsibility and hope,” said Foley.

Foley was made aware of Handmaker’s need for work converting two poles into flagpoles, including a pulley system.

He and Clark volunteered their time and renovated the poles, and presented the facility with the flags for the ceremony.

The two, with support from the community and some $4,000 in donations, have renovated flagpoles and raised more than 200 flags in Tucson and cities across the nation. They have placed flags on empty flagpoles at businesses, private residences and provided Old Glory to schools for classrooms.

After the morning ceremony, Shapiro, 98, a Brooklyn native who was in the Army and served in the Philippines as a captain in the artillery, explained that, “The flag means freedom in addition to pride, justice and an opportunity to live the American dream.”

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He said he was discharged from the Army in 1946 and became an educator, serving as a teacher and principal in the New York City school system. He also taught as an adjunct assistant professor in the graduate school of Hunter College. He moved to Tucson in 1996.

Rogovin, 99, a native of the Bronx, said she “salutes the flag because it represents my country ... sweet land of liberty.”

During the war, Rogovin was a member of the Navy WAVES — Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service — and worked as a biochemist at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C.

“Japan cut off the rubber supply,” explained Rogovin. She said her research helped develop synthetic rubber.

After her military service ended in 1946, she went to work for the American Petroleum Institute and retired in her 60s. She moved to Tucson in 2008 .

While Shapiro and Rogovin reminisced about their military service and the love for their country, other residents and employees enjoyed their stories.

It was the American flag that brought them together for a celebration.

“It is important at Handmaker that we have the American flag flying, not just for the veterans, but for all residents and the people who work here,” said Anne Lopez, Handmaker’s assisted-living manager.