Sea Pines’ Heritage Farms shows flag given to 93-year-old veteran. When will it fly?
A World War II veteran, one of the last of his kind, has decided that a special memento he received in tribute to his military service will now be displayed in a place of honor on Hilton Head Island.
Ninety-three-year-old veteran Frank Dopkiss, of Maynard, Ohio, was surprised to be given the flag used in a ceremony for veterans while on an Honor Flight day trip to Washington, D.C. on Oct. 7, said Hilton Head resident and daughter, Cathy Thomas.
“He’s very proud of his service,” Thomas said. “It was the most moving experience for him to see all the memorials in Washington, D.C..”
Honor Flights is a national network that pays for veterans from World War II, Vietnam and Korean Wars to visit Washington, D.C., and see monuments paying tribute to their sacrifices. Every flight, Thomas said, they pick the oldest veteran aboard and bestow upon them the flag used in the ceremony at the Iwo Jima Memorial.
When he got home from the trip, Dopkiss told his daughter, “It was the most humbling experience to witness the quiet and respect throughout the ceremony,” she said. At first, when they handed the flag over to him, he didn’t understand.
“He was very reluctant to accept it at first because the two guys he was with were from the Vietnam War, and he felt like they did more, they saw battle every day,” Thomas said. “I said, ‘Dad you’re from World War II, there aren’t many of you left.’”
Dopkiss didn’t know what to do with the massive flag, but knew he didn’t want it collecting dust on a shelf. He tried flying it on his own flagpole at home, but it was just too big, Thomas said. When he tried calling schools near where he now lives in Columbus, Ohio, he never got a reply.
The flag was displayed next to the urn of his late wife, Jean Dopkiss. That is until Thomas, who has lived in Sea Pines since 2016, went to Sea Pines’ Heritage Farms, a neighborhood gardening hub, before Christmas to see if there was room for it with them. The farm had, coincidentally, just installed a new flag pole with a solar panel light.
“When it came time that this flag needed a home, it was just the perfect setting,” Thomas said. “So, for us to have it at the farm, that means something.”
The flag, Thomas said, will be flown only on national holidays to keep it in good condition. It flew for the first time on Christmas Day and will fly again Monday on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
The trip to D.C. was something Dopkiss had always wanted to do but kept putting off, his daughter said. He acted as the caretaker for his wife of 70 years when her health took a turn, and “he never wanted to leave her,” Thomas said. After she passed away in 2020, his children urged him to sign up.
“Before her dementia set in, she would have encouraged him to go, but once it was severe, she didn’t want him out of sight,” Thomas said. “I think maybe that was part of what kept him not going for so many years, but she knew he always wanted to go.”
In their seven decades together, Frank and Jean were inseparable and best friends. They met while in high school and stayed together after Dopkiss went to Japan after the war in 1946 to help with “clean up,” his daughter said. He was inspired to go after his uncle was killed while fighting in Normandy. They married, lived together in Ohio and had seven children. They lost two, but, Thomas said, her father “never gave up.” Their relationship, she said, was a good example for her own two-decade marriage.
“It was just one of those devotions to each other and love stories that lasted,” Thomas said. “You can’t just give up and quit.”
