Ten members of the American Legion held a solemn ceremony on Sunday, Flag Day, to burn retired flags. The gathering culminated with flames and dark smoke rising from an old steel caldron. The 10-minute service included a prayer, a speech and the playing of music.

The infrequent event is held when the veterans have collected a large enough pile of flags, the organizers explained.

Post Commander Kevan Nichols said no one should throw out an American flag. It should not be disposed of like trash. The proper way involves donating it to the American Legion, where the membership will over time collect them all together and then dispose them in a dignified way, in a ceremony, paying tribute to the flag and its meaning.

The event happens but every couple of years.

The late afternoon gathering began with a poem; David Kahn read Your Flag and My Flag.

“Your flag and my flag,

And how it flies today

In your land and my land

And half a world away!”

David G. Berube, chaplain for the Oak Bluffs police and also a legion member, gave a prayer.

Legion members then took turns reading a script entitled, Dignified Disposal of Unserviceable Flags.

Mr. Nichols said: “Comrades, we have presented here these flags of our country which have been inspected and condemned as unserviceable. They have reached their present state in a proper service of tribute, memory and love.

“A flag may be flimsy bit of printed gauze, or a beautiful banner of finest silk. Its intrinsic value may be trifling or great; but its real value is beyond price, for it is a precious symbol of all that we and our comrades have worked for and lived for, and died for — a free nation of free men and women...”

Stan Mercer, a retired United Air Force major sprinkled kerosene on the flags as they sat in the steel riveted stand, modified specifically for the purpose.

The fire was set and it quickly grew, casting smoke and heat.

The service ended.

Gene DeFelice, a World War II veteran from Oak Bluffs, said that when the American Legion recently put the word out among the membership that the ceremony was to be held, a number of people came forward and donated their tired flags to the service.

Ed Colligan, veteran from Vineyard Haven, said nylon flags had to be sorted out of the pile, as their burning would be creating hazardous waste. He said the legionnaires will turn over the flags not used in the service to the Chapman Cole and Gleason Funeral Home for them to dispose of off-Island.

Melvin Thornhill has been a member of the legion for six years; he served in the Air Force. He had never witnessed anything like the short service. “This was a wonderful ceremony,” Mr. Thornhill said.

Flag Day was a proper day to hold the event; it commemorates the day the Stars and Stripes were adopted as the flag of the country on June 14, 1777.