CONTRIBUTED PHOTO Retired U.S. Air Force CMSgt. Craig Brandenburg, an Albion native and Class of 1988 MHS graduate, is the proud owner of a 48-star flag that once flew at his grandfather Bob Ruble’s co-op service station in McCallsburg, and the flag has accompanied both Craig and his daughter, USAF TSgt. Caitlyn Barker, on missions around the world.

FORT WALTON BEACH, FLA. — Service runs in Craig Brandenburg’s family. His father, longtime former T-R Outdoors Today Columnist Garry Brandenburg, proudly served in the United States Air Force during the Vietnam War, and Craig, an Albion native and Class of 1988 MHS graduate, followed in dad’s footsteps when he enlisted in the Air Force shortly after high school and ended up spending a total of 30 years in the military before retiring as a CMSgt. in 2018. Today, his daughter, TSgt. Caitlyn Barker, carries on the tradition as the third consecutive generation to serve in the Air Force.

And there’s a special connection between Craig and Caitlyn that lives on to this day: a 48-star American flag from before Alaska and Hawaii were admitted into the Union that has traveled with Craig and now his daughter on deployments and missions all over the world. Its origins can be traced back to a co-op service station in the Story County community of McCallsburg formerly operated by his maternal grandparents, the late Bob and Alberta Ruble.

In 1992, when Bob was retiring from the station, he put all of the various tools and memorabilia he had required on an auction table, and Craig, who was still relatively new to the military at the time, inquired about the flag.

“He gifted it to me seeing that I was kind of drawn to it, and that’s how it came to be in Craig and the family’s continued possession, I guess,” he said.

Although he had a long military career and had spent time in foreign locations like Germany, it was not until the tail end — in 2014 — that Craig was deployed into an active combat zone as part of the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, better known as ISIS. During that time, the flag traveled with him to Kuwait, Jordan and Turkey, and it was also flown into Afghanistan in 2017.

“It traveled all over the theater and on the tankers refueling all the different fighters and all the coalition aircraft, and I got to go on one of those rides where we got to refuel an Australian Wedgetail jet,” he said.

One of his favorite missions, he added, was loading A-10s with depleted uranium rounds at Incirlik Air Base in Turkiye to deny access to the oil trucks ISIS had illegally seized in hopes of selling the product to fund their war efforts. Another particularly memorable moment is the flag going Mach-1 on a B-1B Lancer to the Rivers Military Operating Area in southeastern Oklahoma.

“It was the perfect thing to puncture double walled armor of a tanker truck, and we denied them the use of their oil funds,” Brandenburg said. “Learning about how the pilots put together all of the support, and it is intricate, was a very, very interesting (process)… That mission was very cool to learn about and to see the Air Force orchestra, from the first strings to the last horn, was amazing to see how intricate it was.”

Now that he has retired, Brandenburg lives and works in the Fort Walton Beach, Fla. area as an Air Force contractor in an acquisition program bringing the GBU-53 small diameter bomb II into service. The generational tradition of military service in his family brings him great pride as his daughter, who is currently stationed at AFSOC Headquarters at Hurlburt Field, Fla., has now carried on the tradition of taking the old flag on missions across the world.

“The whole family has gravitated — there’s a magnetism to this flag within the family, and it took us to my brother’s WWII airshow (in Pennsylvania),” he said. “So it’s been on five WWII birds, and the 48-star flag of the same era is still being carried aboard all these modern type bombers and planes that Caitlyn and I have served with. It is a magnificent thing.”

Not bad for a flag that originated in a central Iowa town of less than 200 people. Craig and Garry have plans to bring the flag back to McCallsburg this September.

Contact Robert Maharry at (641) 753-6611 ext. 255 or rmaharry@timesrepublican.com.