Artwork installed at VA dedicated
BUTLER TWP — A striking 750-pound piece of art in the image of a historic military event was dedicated on Tuesday at the Butler VA’s New Castle Road campus.
A painted steel image of the six U.S. Marines lifting the American flag during the Battle of Iwo Jima, complete with a real flagpole and Old Glory waving askew at the end, was the result of the appreciation one V.A. patient and a patriotic welding company.
Clarence “Pistol Pete” Hasenflu, 86, of St. Petersburg, Clarion County, was laying in bed in the spring thinking about the exemplary medical care he has received from the doctors, nurses and others at the Butler V.A. Health Care System over the years.
“I thought, ‘I want to do something for them,’” Hasenflu recalled. “Then I thought about the flag at Iwo Jima.”
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