LIVERMORE FALLS — Twenty-five U.S. flags were snapped off their holders Tuesday morning on Memorial Bridge, and people are upset.

Residents Pat and Wayne Knowlton put up 100 flags every year. Wayne made the friction holders for the flags. They get the flags from the American Legion.

“We recycle,” Pat Knowlton said. A new flag has to be placed on veterans’ graves each year. The old flags are given to the Knowltons to put up on the bridge.

The flags cost the Legion $1 each when they buy them for the graves, Police Chief Ernest Steward Jr. said.

According to Pat Knowlton, they were snapped off between 6 and 8 a.m. Sonny LaFreniere of Livermore had come into town and the flags were OK, she said. When he went home, he noticed they were broken, she said. He contacted the Knowltons to let them know.

“We will replace the flags but we cannot do it right now,” she said. The flags posts have swelled in the holders and they cannot be taken out at this time unless they are drilled, she said.

“People have been calling. People are very upset,” she said. “When they are up, they look so nice.”

When the Knowltons put them up, even the the drivers of tractor-trailers honk their horns.

“It makes you feel good,” she said.

Officer Devon Bohacik is investing the vandalism.

Knowlton and Steward ask that anyone who saw something regarding the flags to call the Livermore Falls Police Station at 207-897-6425.

dperry@sunmediagroup.net