Fallen flag finds its way home
Andy Cruz has seen a lot.
As a veteran of Desert Storm and a 30-year trucker, he’s seen it all – and much of it was hard.
But sometimes, Cruz also sees hope, good people, and even gets the chance to do good himself.
That’s what happened on a crisp mid-October day in Gallup, N.M., when the trucker and OOIDA member from Lebanon, Mo., became involved in a story involving Navajo Code Talkers, motorcycles, fellow veterans and a very special flag.
It started with Geri Hongeva, a wife and daughter of veterans, a member of the Navajo Hopi Honor Riders and – as of Aug. 24 – guardian of the Code Talkers Flag, which is part of the Flags of Honor Escorts program.
Each of the flags represents a group of veterans – in this case, Native Americans who used their tribal language to send coded messages – such as the Navajo Code Talkers during World War II.
Geri Hongeva, a wife and daughter of veterans, is a member of the Navajo Hopi Honor Riders and – as of Aug. 24, 2020 – guardian of the Code Talkers Flag, which is part of the Flags of Honor Escorts program.
The Navajo Hopi Honor Riders – a motorcyclists’ group – brings the flag to events honoring veterans, including one Oct. 16 in Gallup, N.M.
A missing treasure
“I was there for a ceremony, a Navajo ceremony, as well as a dedication that we had at the Comfort Inn Suites in Gallup,” she said. “And there was a small group of six of us there, along with the person who did the prayer and the ceremony.”
Following the event, Hongeva fueled up at the Flying J at mile marker 39 for the 300-mile return trip to Flagstaff, Ariz.
She remembers the flag being on her bike, where it normally was.
However, when she arrived for dinner with a friend in Gallup, about 17 miles west, she discovered the flag was gone.
Geri shot back to the Flying J and started a search.
“I rode my motorcycle back to the location where I last saw it and asked the store manager – nothing,” she said. “We began looking for it that night. My friend, we went and got her truck. She got lights, lanterns, anything we needed to start searching for the flag. And I walked that night from milepost 39 to milepost 34 – that’s just about 5 miles – and didn’t find anything.”
She continued searching the next day with the help of other honor riders, but to no avail.
“There’s three of us searching Saturday morning and still no luck – we didn’t find it,” she said. “So we figured, well, let’s try again Sunday, and we’ll get more people.”
Enter Andy Cruz
Cruz passed through the area Oct. 16, hauling his usual load of boats like Trackers or White River Marine.
He arrived at the Flying J shortly after Hongeva left.
As he approached the truck stop, he spotted something familiar in the road – an object shaped like a triangle. He realized immediately what it was.
“Usually, that represents a departed service member to a family member, and as soon as I saw it I straddled over it by swerving right and then hard back left, so I didn’t run over it,” Cruz said. “I stopped in the middle of the road, turned my flashers on, fell out and went back, hoping it wasn’t a flag. And I picked it up, and I kind of hugged it. And I realized, ‘Oh, I’m blocking traffic.’”
The flag appeared to have been run over a couple of times. Cruz brought it back to his rig, swept the worst of the grime off it, and put it in the jump seat.
Later, inside the box, he found a ledger of where the flag had been, who it had been with and the veterans it had honored.
He also found contact information. He tried emailing, texting and leaving a voice mail.
A little while later, the message got through to Geri Hongeva.
“Andrew Cruz had left a voicemail, and I listened to it. And it was such a big relief, because up until that point I was emotionally torn, crying and worried,” she said. “What happened to the flag? Where could it be? Maybe somebody took it. They’re not going to return it. So many different thoughts crossing my mind. So it was such a big relief to hear Andy’s voice, that he had the flag, and he found it.”
The hard part – getting the flag back
By the time the two were in contact, Cruz was all the way up in Tulsa, Okla., headed for his home in Lebanon, Mo.
Neither Cruz nor Hongeva felt safe simply mailing the flag, which had been lost once. So one of them would have to make the 1,200-mile trip between Flagstaff and Lebanon.
It ended up being Hongeva.
As she and a friend made their way east, Cruz texted her, explaining why the flag was especially important to him.
Cruz is a Marine, a Desert Storm veteran, and both son and father of Marines. His son, Joel, served in Afghanistan with his best friend, Ricky, who Andy calls his “adopted son.”
“They served in the Marine Corps together in Afghanistan,” he said. “While they were in Afghanistan, there was an IED explosion that rattled some noodles, their heads. Killed a Marine, and blew the leg off of another Marine and severely injured his other one. All who survived were suffering from it because, I believe, three out of all the Marines in that group committed suicide.”
His son’s friend Ricky died in July 2014. Joel died some time later. Cruz has a trifolded flag at home from his son’s funeral – the reason finding the Code Talker Flag was so important to him.
“I’ve got my own flag, my own triangular folded flag, and that’s my son’s,” he said. “When I saw the flag, that’s what it reminded me of – somebody’s loved one’s flag of honor. They say when you fold up a flag, it’s like part of their soul is in the fold, so you’re to never unfold it.
“From the funeral, that’s basically what you take home with you – that’s your remembrance. It’s your family honor.”
Finally, face to face
From left, Geri Hongeva, McKenna Cruz, Lori Cruz and Andy Cruz at the family’s home in Lebanon, Mo. (Photo courtesy Geri Hongeva)
Hongeva and her friend started out from Flagstaff Oct. 21, arriving the next night in Lebanon. As they drew near, Cruz texted that he and his wife would cook them dinner – don’t eat, he said, I’m feeding you guys.
They pulled into the driveway, through some flags Cruz set up for their visit.
“I’d set up a bunch of flags for them, all the flags that my immediate family … served in – and that was the Marine Corps, the Army and the Navy,” he said. “Then I had the POW/MIA flag up, and I had them all up on the side of my little storage barn that’s pretty close to the house I keep my lawn mowers and stuff in.”
The two honor riders drove up in full riding gear – chaps and all. Cruz’s daughter ran down the long driveway waving a cellphone flashlight to guide them.
They parked their bikes and took off their gloves and helmets. Cruz and Hongeva hugged, and both started to cry.
Cruz said that as they embraced, it was as if they were “feeling each others’ hearts,” as if they were friends reunited instead of meeting the first time. Hongeva felt the same.
“Thursday night was the first night we met him, and it seemed like I knew him all my life,” she said. “Just to hug him and finally talk to him. He didn’t even feel like a stranger. It almost seemed like an instant friendship and an instant bond, really.”
From saddle to saddle
Inside the Cruz home, Hongeva recognized the importance of where Cruz had the flag. It was on his son’s saddle – something he said Joel thought of as his pride and joy.
“I felt it belonged there. I felt my son needed to watch over it for me,” he said. “When I went outside and did some work, or whatever I was doing outside, that I knew it would be safe. It was fine right there.”
The tears began to flow again. In part, Hongeva said it was because that saddle was exactly where the flag should be.
At all of the events attended by the Navajo Hopi Honor Riders with the flag, it arrives on a motorcycle. In fact, Hongeva said Cruz’s truck was the first time it had ever been on more than two wheels.
In Hongeva’s mind, it fell off a saddle – the saddle of her motorcycle – to come into Cruz’s hands.
“In my culture, we call it (a motorcycle) the iron horse, and it’s just like a horse for us,” she said. “When you take care of your horse, and you feed it while you keep it in good condition, you have a safe ride.
“It’s a mutual relationship – when you respect your vehicle, you respect your horse,” she added. “So seeing it on his son’s saddle meant everything, and I think for me to physically see it there and have that impression in my mind now, that gives me really great comfort that this is the way it needed to happen.”
It happened for a reason
Both Hongeva and Cruz said they thought the flag had made the journey for a reason, that it landed with him for a purpose, that he was meant to find it and to meet Hongeva.
She thought back to the ceremony at the Comfort Suites in Gallup shortly before the flag was lost.
“The person who had blessed all of us basically had said that the flag would be a healing element, that the flag would be healing people that it came and passed with,” she said. “So to me, that was really important. And I let him know that the flag has its presence there for a reason. And it was for him to heal from losing his son. And of all the places that the flag had been, which is now 13 states, in my opinion, the flag had found Andy at that time.”
Hongeva and her companion stayed overnight in a hotel room Cruz secured for them in Lebanon. They came back the next morning to chat one last time. Cruz presented the flag to Hongeva, and saluted.
She returned the flag to its mount, only this time, with some extra bungee cords for security. After a couple of side trips and sightseeing, she headed home.
On the way back, she stopped for fuel near Gallup, where the Code Talkers Honor Flag started its unusual journey.
Like so much that had happened, Cruz said it was meant to be.
“I told them, now the flag has made a full circle; now the flag can go home.”
The flag still rides
The Navajo Hopi Honor Riders continue to bring the Code Talker Flag to events honoring veterans. And it continues to help heal those who have experienced the trauma of war.
“What the flag means to people all the way across the United States is really honoring our veterans, definitely honoring those who have fallen, protecting this country,” Hongeva said. “As we all know, that freedom is not free, and honor has no end.
“Sometimes I get somebody who will ask me – because I’m Navajo – how can you love this flag so much knowing how many Native Americans were eliminated because of living here in the United States?
“You hear about it in history, of the different tribes that were massacred,” she said. “And I said, really, I support our Navajo Hopi warriors. All the people who go into service, they’re doing it for their family. They’re doing it for their land. They’re doing it for their culture. They’re doing it for the future generations. So it’s the exact same love that we have for our culture and our language and our tribe.”
Back behind the wheel
Meanwhile, Cruz is back to trucking, his chosen trade of 30 years.
He finds it therapeutic – being out on the road; talking with fellow drivers, his brothers and sisters, meeting people he delivers to – those things keep him going.
Finding the flag helped him. But nothing can ever heal all of the scars.
“Each day I make it through is one day I made it through,” he said. “When I go to bed, yes, I have nightmares. I have bad dreams from my military days. A lot of anger. Anger with God, anger with the loss of my son, raising my son to know better than to shoot himself. And I still carry a shell casing in my pocket from the pistol that he shot himself with. Just a reminder.”
Finding the flag did help Cruz cope with that, as did meeting Geri Hongeva. And it is something that will remain with him from here on.
“I’ll never forget it. All the years that I’ve been driving, nothing has ever had this much of an impact on my heart.” LL