Click Here for the 2011 Patriot Flag Buffalo Chip Ceremony Program
The Freedom Field™ and the American Veterans Traveling Tribute will be the among the most visible tributes at The Legendary Buffalo Chip’s Freedom Celebration™ at the annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in 2011, along with the Chip’s own huge American flag, a second huge flag will be displayed at the South Dakota Patriot Guard Riders event center at the west entrance to the campground. The displays and ceremonies at The Freedom Field™ are free and open to the public.
For the past 20 years, The Chip has celebrated the freedoms for which our military have fought and died. Many of the folks who come to the Buffalo Chip each year are among those who fought or are currently in the fight. And, The Legendary Buffalo Chip played host to foot soldiers and heroes from mail clerks to combat medics, from buck privates to Generals.
And we are proud of the association.
A Navy pilot who saved his crew by landing his crippled plane in China after a collision with a Chinese fighter pilot; an Army combat medic, who while serving in Vietnam, ignored his own wounds while tending to the injuries of others; A Navy pilot who spent five years in a North Vietnam prison after being shot down (and who later became the Republican Nominee for President); and an Army tank soldier wounded in combat and spent months in an Italian prison after the battle of Normandy in World War II, have all been honorees of the Buffalo Chip’s Freedom Celebration™.
This year, we will be adding another sculpture by metal artist Vaughn Schafer, who created the Buffalo Skull sculpture in the gardens as you enter the campground through the Exhibit Hall. This year, he is creating a field cross, and we are confident the piece will be as emotional as the Freedom Field, the Traveling Vietnam Wall and all the other memorials and tributes coming with the American Veterants Traveling Tribute.
Once again, we are honored to celebrate the very freedoms for which our brave soldiers have fought and continue to fight today.
Thanks to the South Dakota Patriot Guard Riders, The Patriot Flag, a huge, 30’ x 58’ 60 pound flag will fly over the Freedom Field™ at the Legendary Buffalo Chip beginning Monday, Aug. 8 during the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally.
South Dakota will be the last of the 50 states where the Patriot Flag will be flown prior to being delivered to Ground Zero in Manhattan, NY, Washington D.C. and Pennsylvania for the 10th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks. At the Buffalo Chip, the flag be flying from a fire engine ladder truck provided by Rosenbauer America, of Lyons, SD.
The Patriot Flag honors those first responding police and firefighters among the casualties of the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers of New York’s World Trade Center. A series of orchestrated suicide attacks were waged on the United States when 19 terrorists crashed two hijacked airliners into the Twin Towers, killing everyone on board and many others working n the buildings. Within two hours, both buildings collapsed. A third airliner crashed into the Pentagon and a fourth plane crashed into a field near Shanksville in rural Pennsylvania after passengers and flight crew attempted re-take control of the plane, which had been turned toward Washington, D.C.
No passengers or crew survived the airliner crashes. Among the 2,752 dead at the World Trade Center were 60 police officers and 343 firefighters from the Port Authority and New York City. Of the 184 killed at the Pentagon, 55 uniformed military personnel. Forty died when UAL Flight 93 crashed in Pennsylvania.
The Patriot Guard Riders is a group of motorcycle riders from across America. Their mission is to attend the funeral services of American heroes when invited by the family. There, they pay respect to the deceased and their families while shielding the mourners from interruptions created by any protestor or group of protestors.
