By Jason Tait
Staff Writer

METHUEN -- James Sereigo-Wareing is known as "The Flagman" for the patriotic displays he attaches to highway overpasses from Manchester to Boston in support of U.S. troops.

He's received state and local honors for his love of country and is available with a smile whenever soldiers or their families need help with care packages or welcome home parties.

In the privacy of his home, however, he is often a man in extreme pain.

Sereigo-Wareing, 45, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in October, news so depressing that he immediately started planning his funeral.

The disease consumed his thoughts. Sereigo-Wareing wondered if he would live long enough to move into the new home he was building on Howe Street. The physical effects were devastating -- shooting leg pains so terrible he could not walk, an eroding memory and blurry vision.

Sereigo-Wareing quit his job as customer service manager at Malden Mills in May, unable to maintain the 60-hour work weeks to which he was accustomed.

But his love for helping American troops, and a better personal understanding of his disease, made him realize that his efforts did make a difference to perhaps thousands of people. So he started a nonprofit corporation to mail care packages to troops fighting abroad.

"The MS has slowed me down, but it's not going to monopolize me," he said, sitting at the kitchen table in his new home. "The soldiers are the big thing for me right now."

Sereigo-Waring's corporation is called New England Caring for our Military Inc. He seeded it with a personal donation of $10,000. His goal is to collect enough money to mail 10,000 care packages, which will cost about $300,000.

"I don't know where this will end," he said. But he hopes to make his nonprofit organization strong enough so that if the day ever comes, "it will continue without me."

His work has had a positive impact on military families and residents in the area. Recently, a female stranger saw him putting flags on Howe Street and she gave him a big hug for about 45 seconds, he said.

Army Sgt. Brian M. Noel of Methuen received several care packages from Sereigo-Wareing during his deployment to Iraq.

"Getting those packages means a lot to us soldiers," said Noel, who is now back at Fort Bragg, N.C. "It gives us a little feeling of home. ... It's something I won't ever forget."

A Methuen military mother, Clarice Torremeo, said she and her son Peter Torremeo, 34, were given an invaluable morale boost by Sereigo-Wareing. When her son returned from Iraq in March, Sereigo-Wareing had a sign waiting on an overpass: "Welcome home Sgt. Torremeo."

The Torremeos have grown even closer to Sereigo-Wareing through an unlikely connection -- her husband George also has been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

"He puts himself last, because whatever he has it's not as bad as what the troops out there are facing," she said of Sereigo-Wareing. "To him his MS comes second and the troops come first."

Inspired by the nation's patriotism after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks three years ago, Sereigo-Wareing started decorating bridges shortly afterward. The first was the Howe Street bridge over Route 213, and he remembers sneaking there in the middle of the night for fear that he would be arrested.

He laughs at that now. Today, police give him the thumbs up, and he has become well-known as the subject of stories in several regional newspapers and for being featured on Boston television.

His displays include American flags, banners for the nation's military service branches, personalized signs for returning soldiers and yellow ribbons. The Howe Street bridge has been dedicated to Marine Cpl. David M. Vicente, Methuen's only soldier to die in the war on terror.

"It's a good way to motivate soldiers, knowing that what we're doing means something to regular civilians," said Army Spc. Christoper D. Paradis of Methuen, who was on home visit this week from Fort Stewart, Ga. "It gives soldiers hope for the future. Inspiration."

Jason Tait reporter Eagle Tribune 

Jason Tait-Eagle Tribune Reporter
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