Veteran and volunteer firefighter replaces burned flag for Navy veteran
After Navy veteran Larry Hickson lost his home in a fire, Colby McFadden offered to properly retire the scorched American flag and replace it. The pair describe the incident "Fox & Friends," and Hickson explains his next steps after the house fire.
Larry Hickson, a Navy veteran, was 30 minutes away from home when he received a call that his house was on fire.
When he returned, he found it engulfed in flames. But one responder offered Hickson a kind act – to properly retire and replace the American flag scorched in the event.
Colby McFadden, a volunteer firefighter and an Army veteran, arrived at Hickson’s Texas home after the fire had been subdued. His team was conducting overhaul – opening walls and ceilings to check for possible extensions of the fire – when he found the scorched flag in the backyard.
"It was actually one of the first things I saw," McFadden said on "Fox & Friends" Thursday. "The flagpole was just bent over, and the flag was lying on the ground, still clasped to the rope that it was strung on."
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United States of America Flag (iStock) (iStock)
When McFadden sought permission to take the flag, he discovered Hickson was a fellow veteran.
Hickson said he hadn’t thought much of the flag at the moment, but McFadden caught his attention when he walked outside carrying the tattered remains.
"Just the look on his face and the emotion in his eyes and his voice when he asked me if I wanted to have him to retire that flag properly for me, it was like I just felt really a warm feeling, and it was a connection I made immediately with Colby," Hickson told host Ainsley Earhardt.
He said that despite the age gap, the two men made an emotional connection over their shared respect for Old Glory.
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McFadden then explained the process of retiring a flag, which sometimes involves separating the star field from the stripes before respectfully burning the pieces.
McFadden’s organization, a local American Legion post, partners with a Boy Scout troop for flag-retiring events.
"We will say the Pledge of Allegiance, render honors, and then we burn all the flags that we collected over the years to retire," he explained.
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Hickson said he and his wife are now in "clean-up mode" as they attempt to recover and rebuild after the fire.
"My family is here to support me and help me out," Hickson said. "So we're going to make it. We're going to get going."
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