Lewes military banner program reunites siblings

Inspired by the 100th anniversaries of the American Legion and its auxiliary as military service organizations, Lewes American Legion Auxiliary Unit 17 displayed military banners to salute local veterans. 

A total of 30 banners were installed in May, just before the arrival of the Vietnam Veterans Moving Wall and the Lewes Memorial Day Parade, along Savannah Road and Cape Henlopen Drive.

While these banners are a visible sign of patriotism, they have touched the lives of one local family more personally.

Sandy Keen, a new Auxiliary Unit 17 member, wanted to honor her father with a banner but needed paperwork to complete the application. In the process, she reached out to family she hadn’t heard from in years.

Keen was delighted to reconnect with her half-brother whom she has not seen or talked to in 56 years. When Sandy was young, her parents divorced and her father remarried. He had a son named Bob with his second wife. Sandy’s father died in a workplace accident Dec. 20, 1963, when she was 13 and her half-brother Bob was 3 years old. As their father was the only common thread they shared, Sandy and Bob were separated for all those years, until the Lewes military banner program reunited them.

The banners were removed following the July Fourth weekend, and will go up again from Memorial Day through the July Fourth weekend each year.

Nearby, Milton officials are considering erecting similar banners in Milton Memorial Park.

To view the banners online, go to www.troopbanners.com/Lewes.