0:07

My name is Charlie Foley. I am a retired

0:11

Tucson Police officer. I

0:13

served twenty years with that agency.

0:16

I retired about two years ago. I

0:18

did most of my time on patrol.

0:21

I was also a member of the department Swat

0:24

team for five years.

0:26

I won numerous awards

0:28

during that career, but as

0:30

soon as my twenty year mark came up, I retired

0:33

and I have been retired now for almost two years.

0:38

About eight years ago, I started

0:40

a nonprofit organization called

0:43

Flags for the Flagless. How

0:45

that came about is that I was inspired

0:49

by a gentleman I met by the name of Donnie Edwards.

0:51

Donnie Edwards is a retired professional football

0:53

player who is

0:56

giving back to his country, giving back

0:59

to society. Even though

1:01

you know, here's a guy who was at the collegiate

1:03

level, a very experienced

1:06

Division one player, goes onto the NFL as

1:08

an excellent NFL player, and

1:10

what does he do. He keeps giving back to his

1:12

community. I met Donnie,

1:14

talked to him, and I had a six

1:17

hour drive back from San Diego to Tucson,

1:19

where I live, and it hit me, you

1:21

know, here, I'm certainly not a Division

1:23

one athlete or a professional athlete. But

1:26

you know, I was a patrol cop for twenty years at

1:29

that time, fifteen years I was a member

1:31

of the department Swat Team. I

1:33

have received a Medal of valor some other

1:35

awards. I wanted to do more. There was

1:37

something that I wanted to do more

1:40

to give back to my community than you

1:43

know, a couple of awards. It's not about that,

1:45

you know, I wanted to do more. So. I

1:48

grew up in a very patriotic family.

1:50

My father is passed on now.

1:52

He is a marine. My mother's family

1:55

was on the mining business up in Montanna.

1:57

It just brought up to a pre

2:00

a Maria Love America and it

2:02

it got my attention to empty

2:06

flagpoles. As

2:09

I'm driving around in my patrol car in

2:11

downtown Tucson, I started

2:13

seeing all these empty flagpoles

2:16

and I didn't know why. Some had rope on them,

2:18

some didn't have rope on them, and

2:21

I didn't you know, in my head, I

2:24

was like, you know, somebody at one time built

2:26

these buildings or put the flagpoles in years

2:28

afterwards and thought it'd be a good idea

2:30

to have an American flag up, or why are these

2:32

businesses no longer using these

2:35

flagpoles. So there was one particular

2:38

building that was in my division,

2:42

my beat downtown. It's a historic

2:44

building. Old. It used to be where

2:46

trains would stop and they would dump coal

2:48

and ice into this building. It was a coal

2:50

and ice storage that moved into a place

2:52

where they would off road automobiles

2:55

put it in this place. They had an elevator

2:57

that would move the vehicles up and down, and they'd

2:59

store the vehicles in this historic It

3:01

was one hundred years old. It was almost like a gateway

3:04

into Tucson. If you come off the freeway

3:06

on one of the main exits and you come into town. Here

3:09

is this huge, five story,

3:11

one hundred year old building. At the very top.

3:14

From the ground level, you could see there

3:16

was a flagpole leaning on

3:18

the edge of the roof, like coming from the roof, leaning

3:21

on a parapet out over the

3:23

street. And I saw it. I said, you know, here's

3:25

a historic building. It's a gateway

3:28

to the city. I'm going to talk and see

3:30

what I can do about putting a flag up on that flagpole.

3:33

I thought maybe I would have to get a

3:35

crane, or I'd have to get some of the construction business

3:38

that could lift me up to

3:40

get to this pole. You know, I didn't se any exterior

3:43

access to it, so on patrol, I

3:45

went in and I asked to speak to the

3:48

owner or the manager, and

3:51

the gentleman came over and said, I'm the manager.

3:53

The owners I in right now. You know what can I help you with?

3:57

And I began to tell my idea. You know,

3:59

they had a flagpole on top of their building. I

4:02

wanted to start redressing

4:04

flagpoles, putting flags

4:06

up just on it. I don't want to install flagpoles. You

4:09

already have the flagpole. Let me just dress

4:12

it up, fix it up for you. So

4:14

he goes into the story and tells me, you know that

4:17

that poll is up on our roof. We

4:20

have stairs that get us to the roof, but

4:22

there's probably about a twenty foot drop

4:24

once you go out that door down to the roof.

4:27

And that was an old wooden,

4:29

rickety staircase which is

4:32

since gone. Right, it's been on the elements in the

4:34

desert for who knows fifty

4:36

or sixty years. It's gone, so

4:38

we have no access to the roof. So unfortunately,

4:41

I'm sorry, you know, we have no access to our roof

4:43

that way. So you know, I

4:46

can't think of a way that we can help you. I

4:49

said, you know, kind of dejected. I had

4:51

my hopes up and going in. And

4:53

as I'm walking away from him, he says, hold on, here's

4:56

the owner, Mark Berman. He owns

4:58

the building, owns it's a

5:00

very high end, exclusive kind of plumbing

5:02

supply, bathtub sinks, showers.

5:05

You know. Here comes Mark Berman, he's the owner

5:08

of the company. Heales building. Run it by

5:10

him and see if he has, you

5:12

know, an alternative idea for you.

5:14

Okay, So again I go through the whole kind

5:17

of speech that I was ready for, right I just

5:20

I just want to put a flag up on your flagpole. Your

5:22

manager here tells me that you have no

5:24

access to the roof. I'm

5:26

wondering if there's something we can work together

5:29

on to see if I can get a flag up on that

5:31

flagpole. He says. I'll

5:33

tell you what, he says. I'll build a

5:35

brand new staircase on that roof. I'll

5:37

make it out of corrugated steel so

5:39

we have access to the roof and put a flag

5:41

up. Even to this day, I tell that

5:44

story and my jaw it

5:46

just kind of falls open, you know, you're just like,

5:49

just just five minutes ago, you

5:52

know, my emotions were even ten

5:54

minutes, right, I'm high, I'm excited, I got this idea.

5:57

Five minutes later, I'm like, crap, Now

5:59

I'm down. What am I going to do? And

6:01

now I'm back up with the owner saying, no

6:03

problem, we'll do that, you

6:06

know. And I remember calling my dad afterwards

6:08

and this is neither here

6:10

nor there. But he says, you know, Charlie, that's

6:13

the difference with someone who works at the building

6:16

and somebody who owns the building. Right.

6:19

Lesson learned, right, So

6:22

got all excited again. It took a while,

6:25

right, I mean, stairs aren't built, so he had to get

6:27

someone to come up there and build the stairs, and

6:32

the corgate stairs were done. We

6:34

got up on the roof. It

6:37

was it still is there. It's probably

6:40

a thirty foot long heavy

6:44

steel pipe that

6:47

is laying against the roof, and

6:49

they made it specifically so that there

6:51

was a bolt you could take off and then you

6:53

could bring back that pole,

6:56

lay it on the roof to do what you

6:58

need to do, and then historically,

7:01

right, you raise it back up, lead

7:03

it on the roof, put the bolt in so it can't come

7:05

back and it just lays on the roof. So at

7:08

the time, I had a fellow

7:10

police officer that was with me that started this program,

7:12

and we went up there and got

7:15

off all the rust, got our cable

7:19

for it, got you

7:21

know, a pulley at the top. I reached

7:23

out to people in the community that I knew that

7:25

would be interested in this, so I had some

7:27

rope donated rope specifically

7:30

that has a steel cable down the

7:32

center of it. The reason I

7:34

do that is so that when these ropes

7:38

or flags get tattered or old, these

7:41

ropes won't break. Once that rope breaks

7:44

and it comes out of the pulley, you're sunk.

7:47

The only way to get it fixed is to get

7:49

a scissor lift, to get a bucket truck,

7:51

because now you have to get the very top to

7:53

re rope it. So I

7:56

came up with the foresight to say, look, I

7:58

want some sort of cable that

8:00

there's a steel you know wire

8:02

in the middle of it. So that's what we did. We re

8:05

roped it with that and the

8:07

very first flag which

8:10

we raised was on flag

8:12

Day June fourteenth, I

8:14

want to say it was two thy and fourteen.

8:17

Was the very first flag I put up, and

8:21

I picked that date specifically because it

8:23

was Flag Day. You know, you talk to people

8:25

that are older than us, older than

8:28

me. Flag

8:30

Day was an important day

8:33

to people growing up of a different

8:35

generation, right, I mean parades,

8:38

lots of celebrations. It

8:40

was a many fourth of July, my understanding

8:43

Flag Day. So I

8:46

wanted to have this flag put up on Flag Day

8:48

and it worked, It

8:51

just worked out perfect. I had TV

8:54

there, TV media was there, I had

8:56

you know, print media was there, and

9:01

that this program since that first

9:03

flag has taken off in ways

9:06

I never never

9:09

imagined, you know.

9:11

I thought I could be

9:13

a cop and on my weekend, my days

9:15

off, I can kind of keep under the radar and

9:17

just identify empty flagpoles around the

9:19

community, re rope them

9:22

and leave. I didn't want a bunch

9:24

of I'm not looking for fanfare. I'm not looking

9:26

for recognition. It was giving

9:28

back to my community. Much like a police officer, we

9:30

give back to our community and we're not looking

9:33

for things. I want to give back to my

9:35

country and I'm not looking for anything,

9:37

right, I'm not telling people, hey,

9:39

I'll do this if you donate

9:42

X amount or I'll re rope

9:44

your flagpole. If no, you've

9:47

got the flagpole. In my business

9:49

model, if you want to call it, that was I

9:51

want to be able to approach people who

9:54

had a flagpole and be able to say, look, if

9:56

you have the flagpole, I'll do everything else.

10:08

Mike Ivy is a very very

10:10

dear friend of mine. He played

10:13

collegiate football. He lives in

10:15

San Diego, which is where I grew up. I

10:17

was not born in Sanego, but I was raised

10:19

in San Diego. So

10:21

Mike Ivy and I have been friends for

10:24

thirty years, if not longer forty

10:26

years, and so every

10:29

couple of months I would take a drive out to San Diego

10:31

to see my buddy and go home and catch

10:34

a Chargers game or catch a Padre's game or whatever

10:37

it was. So one morning, Mike

10:40

and I go to breakfast

10:43

and he says, Hey, I

10:45

got a buddy that's going to join us, a

10:48

guy named Donnie Edwards. So we got to talk talk

10:50

some business, you know whatever. Okay, never met

10:52

him, I don't really know who he is. So

10:54

Donnie Edwards walks in and we

10:57

just started talking, right, I mean, we had breadfist.

11:01

He has now retired from the NFL, and I asked him,

11:03

I said, so what do you do with your days?

11:05

You know, like I said earlier, here's

11:08

someone who is one of the best in the world

11:11

at what he did. Right, you're a

11:13

professional football player and not just

11:16

sitting on like you're starting. Your your

11:18

number is retired, You're in you

11:20

know, ring of Fame and all this rich

11:22

circles of fame and all that. He was

11:25

one of the best at what he did. And he says,

11:27

you know what, I start a nonprofit

11:30

where I give back to

11:32

veterans, and I give back to veterans,

11:34

particularly at the time this was, you know,

11:37

ten years ago World War II veterans.

11:40

And at the time, I said, oh, like Honor flight

11:42

writer, you've taken a group of guys back

11:44

to Washington, d C. And making sure they

11:47

see the memorial. And no, no,

11:49

no, he says, I'm taking

11:51

groups of men and women back

11:53

to where they fought their battles. I'm

11:56

taking groups to Iwo Jima. I'm

11:58

taking groups to France, to Normandy.

12:01

I'm taking groups to you

12:04

know, Germany where

12:06

they fought. This is what I'm doing.

12:08

I'm giving them thanks, and I am

12:11

I have the arrangements to take

12:14

these veterans before they

12:16

die, back to where

12:18

they fought their battles. Holy

12:22

crap. And again. So

12:25

then now from San Diego

12:27

to where I live, that's a six hour drive all

12:30

by myself, lots of time to think it

12:33

was. It was very poignant time. I mean, it

12:35

was a game changer meeting him. And

12:37

it sounds silly, I know, but I compared kind

12:41

of where I was in my life to what Donnie

12:43

had done as

12:46

a swat operator, a metal avaled

12:48

recipient. I'm a firearms instructor,

12:50

I'm a rifle instructor. I'm instructing

12:53

cops on how to do tactics, and

12:55

I'm saving lives. Okay,

12:59

there was something I needed to fill myself,

13:01

to fill my soul with more

13:04

than that. Right, copwork

13:07

was tough work, and I don't mean laborious, I

13:09

mean mindful work. So

13:12

to find something to give back to

13:14

my country that I wasn't

13:17

looking for recognition. I didn't want any

13:20

sort of accolades for it. That made

13:22

me happy, right to fill my time on my day's

13:24

off or so, I thought, let

13:27

me just put up American flags, you know.

13:29

And it wasn't under a certain presidential

13:34

inauguration. It wasn't under any sort of that

13:36

had nothing to do with it. It's just where

13:39

I was in my life,

13:41

what I was doing, who I met, That's

13:43

what inspired me. It wasn't a political

13:46

agenda, it wasn't a religious agenda

13:49

nothing. I have no connections to anybody in the flag

13:51

business. I have nothing. It

13:54

was something I just wanted to do on

13:56

my own to give back, and

13:59

that's how started. It was that conversation with Donnie

14:02

and what he has done, what he did previously

14:04

to what he's doing now inspired

14:07

me to start the ball

14:09

rolling for putting my organization

14:11

together. You

14:19

know, I didn't join the military. I was

14:21

lucky enough that financially

14:24

I had a family that could send me to college,

14:28

and I wanted to make money. I did, you

14:30

know. I grew up in a part

14:33

of town or around people that their families

14:35

did very well for themselves, and I wanted to continue

14:37

that. I wanted to make money. I knew that

14:39

there were cops in my family, but in my head,

14:42

I can't make any money doing that. That's a job,

14:44

you know's it's not it's

14:47

thankless. You barely get by,

14:49

you can't really support a family. It was tough. I'm

14:51

like, no, I'm gonna go to college,

14:53

I'm gonna try to make a bunch of money and be successful.

14:57

Well, I went to college married,

15:00

I was very successful. You

15:02

know what, It's not dollars cracked up to me. I

15:06

never had to go to the bank. I never had to use an

15:08

ATM. I had cash all the time on

15:10

hand. And

15:13

so a time came up during that where we

15:15

had a business and a

15:17

lease was coming up, and I said, you know what, let

15:20

me just test. Let me just test

15:22

for the department and see what

15:24

happens. Right, So

15:26

I went down. At the time, there was five hundred other people

15:29

that applied. It was in the convention

15:31

center. They were holding testing programs

15:35

down there. Anyway, I

15:37

got on and I became a police officer. And I will tell

15:39

you I took a fifty percent

15:41

pay cut, and to this day,

15:43

I will tell it's the greatest thing I ever did. There

15:46

was nothing greater

15:50

than loving what you do. And

15:52

to me it was another pig

15:54

turning point is it's not about money.

15:57

You do what makes you happy, right, And so

16:00

I tell my kids, as

16:02

long as you're happy, that's

16:04

what you need to do. And I can

16:06

say that because I've been on both sides of it. Don't

16:10

get me wrong, I like to make money. But

16:12

there were times in my career as a cop, particularly

16:15

when I was on the swat team and they were

16:18

handing me a machine gun

16:20

and they're telling me how to shoot, how

16:22

to conduct urban warfare, and they're teaching

16:24

me how to I'm like, are you kidding me?

16:27

I'm getting paid to do this, right,

16:30

It was one of those moments. It was just a great moment in

16:32

my life. I was just so

16:34

happy, right, and even to this day, twenty years

16:36

later, I will tell

16:38

you it's a tough job, but

16:41

it's one of the best jobs in the world. The things I

16:43

was able to see, the experiences I've

16:45

had, I mean,

16:47

it goes on and on, right, So the

16:49

greatest job in the world. So

16:56

the flag when I see it, what

16:58

it means to me is changed

17:00

over my lifetime. As a

17:02

kid, you know, we said the Pledge of Allegiance

17:05

to it every day in school, and

17:07

it's about honor and respect and

17:09

veterans. Right. I was around veterans growing

17:12

up, law enforcement as well as military.

17:14

But as I get a little bit older

17:16

and I talk to more people and

17:18

just you know what the flag

17:21

means to me is hope. You

17:24

have people wanting to come to our country

17:27

for whatever reason, and when they see

17:29

that flag, it is a sign of

17:31

hope for them for a

17:33

better life, for a way

17:37

of life. No matter how

17:39

terrible we in this country

17:42

may think it is, there are

17:44

people that see that flag and it

17:46

brings them hope. And that's

17:48

what I have come to grasp

17:51

and come to believe in, is that, you

17:53

know, you see that flag, there's

17:56

hope for us. There's hope for this country

17:59

that no matter what

18:02

crisis we may have, we're

18:04

going to get through it right. We're going to see that

18:06

flag and it provides hope to people

18:09

that our country is stitch

18:12

together. That there is bloodshed,

18:14

but there's also you

18:16

know, peace and all fifty stars.

18:19

We're tied in this together and we

18:21

see that flag. To me, it gives

18:23

me hope that our

18:25

country will remain united, will

18:28

you know, not be divided. And

18:31

it allows for people

18:35

to know that there is a better tomorrow,

18:37

that there is a future and it

18:40

will and can be better if we

18:42

work together.

18:45

Thank you for joining us on this episode

18:47

of Flags for the Flagless. This

18:50

episode was produced by Charlie Foley Doug

18:52

Levy and Jason Whykol. To

18:55

listen to Charlie's newest episodes, please

18:57

download and subscribe through your favorite podcast

18:59

service, and if you liked the show

19:01

enough, leave a review. Your thoughts

19:04

would greatly be appreciated. Flags

19:07

for the Flagless United Stories of America

19:09

is proudly produced and distributed by

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