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By Douglas Belkin, Globe Staff | August 5, 2004
Joe Pouech was slouching in a barber's chair in Woburn -- getting the same no-nonsense buzz cut he's been wearing since he was in the Navy -- when the DJ's voice broke through a Springsteen tune to tell the world that a second plane had just smashed into the World Trade Center.
Pouech sat straight up in the chair. The rest of the day, while he was on his knees installing carpet with his father, he listened to the news with the rest of the country and a single thought kept crossing his mind: We have to get the people who did this.
Nearly three years later, Pouech's patriotic impulse -- and his desire to support the military -- has evolved into one of the most well observed landmarks in Greater Boston. Moreover, residents in Woburn believe the American flags Pouech has hung on fencing at the Mishawum Road overpass above Route 128 a few months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and has quietly maintained ever since, have spurred other displays throughout the state.
"I think we've sort of set the bar for everybody else," said Maria Hennessy, who has lived in the Woburn neighborhood her whole life.
Whether Pouech's highway memorial was the model for many others is debatable, but clearly other displays have surfaced since he put his up in late 2001.
James Sereigo-Wareing of Methuen said he saw Pouech's display and started to decorate bridges around March 2003 when protesters began marching against the war in Iraq.
"I just believe we have to stand behind our troops," said Sereigo-Wareing, 45. "I remember what it was like when the troops came home from Vietnam and how they were treated. I didn't want them to have to go through that again."
Sereigo-Wareing's efforts have spread to 11 bridges between Boston and Derry, N.H. More recently he has broadened his call to service to include recruiting the community to send care packages to scores of area servicemen. In addition, he hangs personalized "Welcome Home" banners on the overpasses alongside the flags and has dedicated four bridges to servicemen who have been killed in action.
Pouech, a burly 34-year-old veteran, said his passion to have the nation come together in support of the troops has only grown as hostilities in Iraq continue.
"When you're over there it's not like if you're hot you can just run into a 7-Eleven and pick up some milk," said Pouech, who served two tours in the Gulf region, including one during Desert Storm. "You're stuck over there with the sand fleas and the heat and a lot of [people] who don't like you."
Immediately after Sept. 11, Pouech was heartened by the American flags that popped up everywhere almost overnight. But as the days after the attack turned into weeks, then months, most of the red, white, and blue that blanketed the country began to fade.
"No way, it's not right," Pouech told his buddies one night over beers, referring to the fading. "I'm going to do something about it."
He began putting the flags up on the fence over the Mishawum Road overpass the next day because it was near his home and because it was the most visible place he could think of. He has maintained them assiduously ever since.
Every few weeks he replaces the old flags with new ones. More than 30 currently line the fence. Pouech estimates he has gone through about 500 in the nearly three years he has been maintaining the patriotic display. All told, he figures it has cost him about $3,000, not chump change for a guy renting a one-bedroom apartment near the highway and laying carpet for a living.
Although not too many people in the area know who is responsible for maintaining the flags, the neighborhood has come to identify with the spirit of the endeavor. Red, white, and blue banners cover mailboxes, birdhouses, and flower boxes in the Mishawum neighborhood. American flags fly in front of nearly every home.
Several times when Pouech has come to replace the flags over the highways, motorists and neighborhood residents -- who don't know who is -- have called the police, mistaking him for a vandal.
"People go nuts," Pouech said. "They think I'm trying to rip them down or something."
In the meantime, similar displays have spread across the state. Sereigo-Wareing is one of those who have kept the memorials going. He estimates he has spent nearly $8,000 on his project so far.
"It's nothing compared to what these people are giving up," he said, referring to soldiers.
Sereigo-Wareing never served in the military but went to New York immediately after the attacks on the World Trade Center. When he saw soldiers setting up a perimeter around the city, he said, something inside him shifted.
"I realized they were putting their lives on the line to protect me, to protect us," he said. "I'd always respected the military, but that really drove home what we owe them."
A high-level manager at Malden Mills, Sereigo-Wareing was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis last year. He said the disease recently forced him to quit his job. And though work that used to take him an hour can now take him several days, he said he is happy to be able to devote himself to the project.
Indeed, the threat of another terrorist attack -- which he considers inevitable -- scares him more than the course of his disease. "The disease is just me," he said. "An attack could affect the entire country."
In the meantime, he said, the meaning of the dedications have changed for him as he has gotten to know the families of soldiers and as the casualties in Iraq have mounted.
"When I started, the decorations were sources of pride to me," he said from his home in Methuen. "But as these kids are dying they've become really sad."
Meanwhile, Sereigo-Wareing is continuing his efforts to send care packages to soldiers in Iraq and to personalize his displays.
Because the identities of soldiers and their families aren't publicly available, Sereigo-Wareing has solicited names through the post office. Whenever a letter or care package is mailed to a soldier, he has asked post office employees in a few towns to hand the sender a letter explaining that he is collecting names to support the troops.
Through that way and word of mouth he has generated a list of hundreds of area soldiers and he knows when they are coming home and is able to hang banners. Sereigo-Wareing hung one sign from the overpass along Interstate 93 for Private Richard Melberg of Methuen, when he returned home from Iraq two months ago after he was shot in the stomach.
"It meant a lot to us," said Melberg's mother Rhona. "It let all his friends know he was home for one thing, and it makes you feel like someone cares."
Marine Lance Corporal Alex Santiago, 20, of Lawrence, who returned to the United States from Iraq last week and is currently in North Carolina, said he will give Sereigo-Wareing an American flag that flew over Fallujah when he returns to Lawrence.
"What he's doing is incredibly generous," said Santiago, referring to the care packages that he and his fellow Marines received through Sereigo-Wareing's e-mail list. "Not a lot of people go out of their way for us the way he has. Everybody who's heard of him in the service just calls him the Flag Man."
As far as the Massachusetts Highway Department is concerned, the Flag Man -- and anybody else -- can post decorations or memorials over or along the highways as long as they don't become a public safely hazard. That is something Sereigo-Wareing keeps in mind. Both he and Pouech painstakingly secure their flags to the bridges. That's partly because each has lost dozens of flags through theft, and also because each has seen displays of flags inadequately secured.
"Just tell people to be careful" if they want to create highway displays, Sereigo-Wareing said.
"And tell people that we're all in this together," said Pouech. "If [terrorists] start coming over here and blowing up buses, it's going to be anarchy. This whole war is no joke." 
© Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.
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