PASO ROBLES — You may have noticed the 13 American Flags along Veteran’s Memorial Bridge on Niblick Rd. on Thursday, Sep. 2. The flags were put up at sunrise and taken down at sunset in an impromptu effort by a few friends that came up with the idea the night before. The group borrowed some flags from a local non-profit, non-partisan service club and contacted the Army Recruiters in Paso Robles for some help in hanging the flags.

“The 13 flags represent the 13 service members killed,” explained David Phillips, “1 Army, 11 Marines, 1 Navy. We put up the flags of those service branches and hung one black ribbon on them for each service member they lost.”

The date was significant in that it marked one week since the car bomb in Kabul that killed the service members being honored.

The group explained that they felt it was important to honor the fallen soldiers, as it has been more than a year since our armed forces have suffered such a loss in Afghanistan, and they wanted to remind our community that our Armed Forces are still out there putting themselves in harm’s way to protect us.

“Our effort today is simply to honor the sacrifices our men and women make to keep us all safe,” said Phillips. “We don’t intend this to be anything more than that. I think all Americans, regardless of their political party or how they feel about the conflicts the men and women of our military are sent to fight in, owe these heroes a debt of gratitude. We should all take every opportunity to honor what they do and the sacrifices they and their families make that allow us to live as free as we do.”