Friday, July 9, 2010

Homeless Patriot Saves American Flag

From Fox News ~ An act of patriotism has earned a homeless man national acclaim and potentially a lot of money -- if would-be donors can find a way to send it to him.

Gustus Bozarth of El Paso, Texas, braved driving rain and strong winds to carefully fold an American flag that fell to the ground when a storm knocked down a flagpole.

Bozarth's selfless act was captured on surveillance tape -- and now the video has caught the attention of people all over the country who want to reward him for his patriotism -- and help him get back on his feet.

But nobody knows where or how to send him money.

"We've gotten so many calls from people all over the nation wanting to help," said Rebecca Rorozco, who works for Meti Inc., the federal contractor that owns the flag. "…But at the moment the company's not going to take any monetary donations because we don't want to handle the money right now.

"So we're trying to see if we can set up a fund for him or if any kind of financial institution would want to work with him, because he doesn't have anything: no ID, no identity really."

When Meti employees found the fallen flag, they thought at first that they were dealing with a much different sort of person.

"We came back to work on Monday morning and we saw the flagpole next to our building and the flag tucked underneath the windshield wipers of a Meti truck ... a police report was made because at first we thought that it was vandalism," Rorozco told FoxNews.com.

But later, when they reviewed the surveillance tape, they saw that it was the storm -- not a person -- that knocked the flagpole down, and that Bozarth had braved the elements to fold the flag military style and tuck it safely under the truck's wiper. He then carried the flagpole away from the street and up to the front of the building.

"When we saw that it was a good Samaritan, we were shocked -- and even more shocked to see that it was a homeless man who had been around the area for quite a while. So we were able to locate him and thank him for the good deed that he did and for helping our flag to be saved," Rorozco said.

But Meti employees weren't the only ones who wanted to thank Bozarth for his good deed.

Social media sites have been flooded with comments expressing gratitude to the homeless man, calling him everything from a patriot to a "true American hero."

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