By Jason Schoonover, Austin Daily Herald

AUSTIN — As members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1216 and the color guard for many years, World War II veterans Truman Moen and Charles Rector are used to handling the American flag with respect.

But on Thursday they were extra careful when handling a flag carried into Normandy on D-Day, June 6, 1944.

“We’ll handle this thing with care,” Moen said as he and Rector held the war-torn flag.

Austin VFW members were buzzing about the flag a little more than a week after finding it in a cabinet while cleaning the VFW Hall at 300 Fourth Ave. NE for a $105,000 remodel.

To VFW Cmdr. Scott Wiechmann, it’s a sign the remodel was meant to happen.

“Every time I handle this flag I get goosebumps,” he said. “I really do. The history of it. The sacrifices that were made on that day.”

Friday is the 70th anniversary of D-Day, which marked the start of the Allied invasion into Western Europe during World War II. Moen, 89, Rector, 83, and other VFW members examined the brittle flag one day before the anniversary and questioned if holes in the flag were from shrapnel on D-Day.

Wiechmann thinks the VFW received the flag from a family in the 1990s. It was found boxed with an unsigned note reading, “This flag was carried ashore on D-Day in the invasion of Normandy. It was made in Liverpool, England. … Mr. Carl Chamberlain skipper of an LSI [Landing Ship, Infantry] gave it to me.”

Wiechmann contacted the Minnesota Historical Society to help preserve and frame the flag. The flag will be fully displayed in the VFW’s new color guard and historical display.

Moen and Rector marveled at the flag’s age, adding it’s rare to see one as old.

“I really thought it was a great thing,” Rector said.

The Mower County Historical Society has a flag carried by Mower County soldiers in the Civil War in several battles and even during Sherman’s March to the Sea. But to Interim Director Jaimie Timm’s knowledge, the historical society doesn’t have a flag carried in World War II, let alone at the key Allied victory at Normandy.

“That’s a really neat find,” Timm said.