“My uncle asked me to send the flag he had received to the family of the man who gave it to him in the hospital.” – Mike Stillo

Family-to-Family

“I was visiting my uncle in Ohio, when I was a child, one summer when I happened to find a flag.  I was so excited by the find that I rushed outside and affixed it to a stick. Then I ran and ran around my uncle’s yard so it could flow behind me.”   Mike said as he began his story.

When his uncle came out and saw him running around with the flag, he gently took it off the stick and carefully folded it.

“This isn’t something to play with, Mike.”  He lovingly explained.  “I am simply its caretaker.”

Of course, Mike was a little disappointed that his fun was at an end.  At the same time, he was touched by his uncle’s reverence for a flag that he’d never seen before.   Still, he knew that there was deep meaning attached to that piece of cloth, because it was clearly important to someone he loved and respected.  

He showed his love and respect for his uncle by following him back into the house where the two put the flag back in its box.  It remained protected there for the next several years as Mike grew into a man, living in Georgia, and his uncle grew older, while still living in his Ohio home.

Mike was at work when he received a call to go to his ailing uncle at that same home.

“I walked into his home with trepidation.”  Mike explained.  “My uncle had been a medic in World War II and the Korean Conflict.  He was a healer.  So, when he called me and asked that I be at his bedside I knew it was likely the last time I’d see him alive.”

It was a solemn and surprising time for Mike.  I say surprising because while he thought of his uncle often over the years, he had hardly remembered that one particular day.  The day he discovered the flag he had never seen before.  But, he remembered it vividly as soon as his uncle handed him the time-worn box that was still preserving that honored flag.

“My uncle asked me to send the flag he had received to the family of the man who gave it to him in the hospital.” Mike said as he choked on the emotion of his words.

His uncle was treating a man, in a military hospital, for wounds sustained during World War II.  His plane had crashed.  This enemy pilot had been rescued from the remains of his shot-down aircraft.  The Japanese aircraft, known as a kamikaze, was loaded with explosives and making a deliberate suicidal crash on an enemy target.  The mission had failed and now the pilot’s life was fading.

As the pilot lay dying he reached into his jacket and pulled a carefully folded flag out.  He then handed it to Mike’s uncle and said, “Please return this to my family.” He was gone a few moments later.

Now Mike’s uncle had passed the story and his sacred task on to his nephew.

“I happened to be working for a Japanese company in Georgia!”  Mike explained.

He bid his uncle farewell with his promise to return the flag to the pilot’s family and he went home with sorrow and determination.  He was sorry for the loss of his uncle and was determined to fulfill his promise.  So, as soon as he returned to work he showed the flag to a couple of men at work who were from Japan.

The three of them opened the flag together.

“These are very rare!” One of the men said.  “They’re usually sold for a great deal of money.  Do you want to sell it?”

Mike replied with an emphatic, “No!  I want it to be returned to the pilot’s family.  We’ve made a family-to-family promise!”

The flag had writing on it and Mike was hoping that his friends could translate it.  He also hoped it would contain clues as to whom he could return the flag.  It turned out that the hand-written notes were penned in old Japanese, so Mike’s friends were unable to decipher all of it.  But, they knew someone who could read old Japanese and sent it to be translated.

“They brought it back to me in a couple of weeks.” Mike said.  “They explained that the pilot’s family had written well-wishes on the flag and their family name was Suzuki.  I was excited because I worked for Isuzu Trucks and felt that my friends there in Japan would be able to help me find the right family!”

They did!  And, Mike returned the flag to them.

“They were filled with gratitude!”  Mike said.  “I was just grateful to have kept the trust of my uncle and our obligation, family-to-family.  My uncle and I were simply the flag’s caretakers!”

Mike began his story with, “I was visiting my uncle in Ohio, when I was a child, one summer when I happened to find a flag.  I was so excited by the find that I rushed outside and affixed it to a stick. Then I ran and ran around my uncle’s yard so it could flow behind me.”

What he didn’t know then, was that this particular flag stood for something much greater than one boy’s fun.  It was stood for love and obligation between families on different sides of the world.

Family-to-Family!