Coincidences bring flag to Iraq

Date: 3/23/2010

March 24, 2010.

By G. Michael Dobbs

Managing Editor



CHICOPEE -- Coincidence can be a pretty powerful as Bowie School students learned on Thursday.

Jessica Lemieux was a member of the New England Patriots Cheerleaders last year. Her mother Jessica is the principal of the Selser School, next door to the Bowie School. Her sister Amanda is a teacher at the Bowie School.

So when Bowie Social Studies teacher Amy Wilkins came up with a combination social studies and art project in which the students of Bowie made an American flag with their red and blue handprints, Amanda Lemieux suggested that perhaps her sister could take the flag to a military unit during a USO tour of Iraq last November.

Wilkins said that since she sees every child in the school, she was able to have each student add his or her handprint to the bands of blue and red. The students also made cards to be given to troops.

The unique flag, made on two large white bed sheets, was presented to the men and women of the Marine Wing Support Squadron 472, who were then deployed in Al Asad, Iraq. What Jessica didn't realize at the time was that the unit's home base at Westover Reserve Air Base.

Marine Capt. Chris Hermann brought back the flag to the Bowie School and told the students the flag will be brought to another Marine unit serving in Afghanistan.

Hermann also presented the school with a plaque of appreciation.

The Marine Wing Support Squadron 472 was one of the last Marine units to leave Iraq. The squadron displayed the flag from November 2009 to January.

Jessica has since left the cheerleading squad because of time restraints with her career. She said she was surprised to discover the unit that was given the flag was from Chicopee.

"You don't think you're going to run into someone who is from just down the road from you," she said.

The flag will be displayed at a spaghetti supper benefit at the school on March 31.