Symbols We Stow: Flag serves as memorial for sergeant

  • Published
  • By Nick DeCicco
  • 60th Air Mobility Wing Public Affairs

TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. – When Carole Sherbula gave a flag to Staff Sgt. Korey O’Shea, he had no idea how its meaning would change.

 

When he was about to go on his first deployment in 2012, O’Shea, 921st Contingency Response Squadron aerial port mobility supervisor, accepted the rectangle of cloth from Sherbula, a family friend. It shows four American flags on the same piece of cloth.

 

O’Shea carried it with him on deployments to Southwest Asia in 2012 and 2013, gaining complexity as a symbol of what was across the globe from him — family, friends, his childhood home near San Francisco in Pacifica, California, and the base where he’s assigned at Travis Air Force Base, California.

 

In January it took on more significance when Sherbula died at age 79.

 

“The value of the flag changed like a mood ring,” said O’Shea. “I felt like it was such a great gesture by her to give it to me. … It’s a good way to remember her.”

 

O’Shea said Sherbula wanted him to be safe.

 

“I started asking the questions everyone who deploys does – ‘What the heck am I doing out here?’ ‘Why am I doing this?’” he said. “And the flag was a quick reminder. ‘This is why I’m doing it.’”

 

During his 2012 deployment, O’Shea draped the flag from a length of extension cord that stretched across the top of his tent, hanging it over his bed. In 2013, a San Francisco 49’ers fan, he put it on a wall next to a jersey of then-Niners quarterback Colin Kaepernick, both reminders of the people and country he serves.

 

O’Shea’s spent plenty of time in the Bay Area. He grew up less than 20 miles from Candlestick Park, the stadium where the Niners played home games until 2014. He met Sherbula when he was 12, befriending her son and nephew.

 

“She just kind of had that southern hospitality for anybody who came in their home,” he said of Sherbula.

 

During his teenage years, O’Shea went camping with Sherbula’s son and nephew at Lake Berryessa, California, an hour-long drive from Travis. His first eight years in the Air Force were spent stationed at Travis, first with the 60th Aerial Port Squadron, and from May 2014 until this month with the 921st CRS.

 

“I grew up in (the) Bay Area, so being at Travis for (the) first eight years of my career wasn’t exactly the traveling that I anticipated, but it was a pleasure being so close to home,” said O’Shea.

 

In the 921st CRS, O’Shea helps track and process cargo of all kinds, including tents, equipment, vehicles, Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, Strikers, food and much more.

 

He plans on carrying the flag with him as he enters the next chapter of his life and leaves for Alaska on his next assignment later this month.

 

“It’s kind of what it represented before, as well as kind of a memorial,” said O’Shea. “I think the family that she left behind, they were definitely grieving pretty hard when she passed away. … (To) show my gratitude in that fashion for them was another reminder of how special of a woman she was.”