Anthony Peterson Unveils First Flag to Remember in Gypsum

“The purpose of each flag is to honor the legacy of the fallen heroes by preserving their names, telling their stories and inspiring communities to remember their service and sacrifices.”

That’s the mission statement Anthony Peterson carries with him, but the origin story is far more personal. It started in the quiet, heavy moments after he left the Army in 2010. Peterson didn’t set out to become a nonprofit founder or a traveling ambassador for military grief. He just needed to figure out how to handle the loss of friends who died on the battlefield and those who died by suicide.

“I was not prepared and didn’t know how to handle that kind of stuff. No one teaches you how to grieve in that way,” Peterson said.

His supervisor gave him a specific assignment to help him process the trauma: volunteer for the funeral honors detail. Peterson led teams to fold flags and hand them to grieving spouses. He noticed something specific in the way families received that fabric rectangle. It wasn’t necessarily immediate closure. It was a tangible anchor in a sea of chaos.

“It was just like that tangible something that did something positive for that family member,” Peterson said.

He decided to take that concept and make it permanent. He went to a local sewing shop and asked them to stitch the names of his fallen friends directly onto the flags. He carried that custom flag around, using it as a conversation starter during what he calls “fireside chats.” People would ask to add their own buddies’ names. It grew from there. Every Memorial Day, he posted on social media, asking if anyone wanted a name added.

By 2021, a nonprofit he was volunteering with saw the potential. They used their networks to help him formalize the operation into what is now known as Flag to Remember. Today, those framed flags hang in airports, stadiums, VFW posts, gyms, and breweries across the country.

Now, that story is coming to a stop right here in Gypsum. Peterson will be on hand Monday to unveil a Flag to Remember at 10th Mountain Whiskey & Spirit Company’s distillery. This marks the first flag of its kind to be displayed in Eagle County.

The choice of venue matters. A distillery is a place of gathering, of conversation, of local pride. It’s not a sterile government office or a distant museum. It’s a place where locals drink, talk, and live. Placing the flag there ensures it’s seen by people who might otherwise walk past a plaque on a wall.

The flag itself serves as a living ledger. Each name represents a life cut short, a story preserved. Peterson’s journey from a soldier struggling with grief to the founder of a national movement shows how a simple, tangible object can bridge the gap between individual loss and collective memory.

“We’d find ourselves doing those fireside chats, talking about people we lost, laughing, crying, all that stuff,” Peterson said. “And then I’d show them the flag and they would ask if they could put their buddy’s name on my flag.”

It’s a simple mechanism for a complex emotion. The flag doesn’t fix the pain. It doesn’t erase the suicide of a buddy or the bullet that took another. But it makes the loss visible. It makes it real. And in a community like Gypsum, where military families are part of the fabric, making that loss visible is a form of respect.

The unveiling on Monday isn’t just about hanging a piece of cloth on a wall. It’s about acknowledging that the cost of service is paid in full, and that the community is responsible for remembering the receipt. Peterson is bringing that receipt to 10th Mountain. It’s a reminder that while we may not all have served, we all share the burden of remembering those who did.

As Peterson puts it, the goal is to ensure that the names aren’t just listed, but that the stories behind them are told. It’s a shift from passive observation to active remembrance. And for the folks in Gypsum, it means there’s a new place to go when they want to understand what sacrifice actually looks like, one name at a time.