Flag “Vandal” Gets Flag from USS Intrepid

Remember when U.S. Army veteran Jim Brossard cut down the Mexican flag that was flying above the American flag, in America?

Broussard pulled up in his truck to the Cantina El Jaripeo near downtown Reno yesterday, cut the rope that anchored the flags and pulled them down from a makeshift flagpole.

He left the Mexican flag on the ground and, with the U.S. flag in hand, turned to the KRNV cameraman:

“I’m Jim Broussard,” he said, “and I took this flag down in honor of my country with … a knife from the United States Army. I’m a veteran, I’m not going to see this done to my country. If they want to fight us, then they need to be men, and they need to come and fight us. But I want somebody to fight me for this flag. They’re not going to get it back.”

Veterans who served aboard the USS Intrepid recently presented him with an American flag that flew aboard the historic ship.

“To fly the American flag underneath the Mexican flag, it just defies everything,” said Wayne Erven, West Coast representative of the U.S.S. Intrepid Association Inc. “Our flag goes on top. That’s the honor we give our flag.”

Erven, of Pleasanton Calif., gave Brossard the appreciation Tuesday at the James D. Hoff Peace Officer Memorial in Idlewild Park.

“To go and pull that down, you’ve got more guts than brains maybe,” Erven told Brossard.