When Neal Lyday arrived at his gym in Bakersfield, Calif., on Wednesday, he found one of his trainers – U.S. combat veteran Michael Portell – standing under where his American flag was supposed to be.
(FOX)- He said Portell was standing in disbelief because charred remains of the flag were on the pavement and the pole was burnt to a crisp. Lyday shared some photos of the burned remains on Facebook.
“He couldn’t believe that someone could actually do that,” he told KBAK. “It hurt me to see something like that.”
“So on Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day… I got this,” Lyday wrote. “To hell with you .. Thank god it only burned the flag.”
Lyday’s gym was not the only one vandalized on the eve of the 75th anniversary of the bombing in Pearl Harbor.
The American flag from the neighboring gym, owned by Dicky Mulyana, also was burned.
“I noticed there was something on the ground and then I looked up and was like ‘where’s my flag?’” Mulyana told KBAK.
The vandalism apparently happened sometime between when Muylana left his business at 8:30 p.m. Tuesday and 4:30 a.m. on Wednesday when he returned.