Veteran Marine Staff Sgt. Daniel Brashears was enjoying a weekend away from his Murfreesboro, Tennessee, home with his wife and friends when an alleged thief ran off naked with his U.S. and Marine Corps flags.
Local police caught up with a nude, 22-year-old Callum Burks, of Shelbyville, Tennessee, not far from Brashears’ home on May 2 at about 11:08 p.m. Asked why he had taken the flags, Burks reportedly told officers the performance of the national anthem preceding the highly-anticipated Mayweather-Pacquiao boxing match moved him, “so he decided he needed to do something,” according to the police account.
Burks surrendered the flags, police said, and they were returned to Brashears’ home, where his father-in-law was house-sitting. Brashears, who served three tours in Iraq between 2002 and 2012, said his in-law called his wife with the news first, hoping she could fill her husband in on the incident delicately.
“She had to break it to me gently,” Brashears recalled. “She was just afraid of what I would do.”
Authorities charged Burks with theft, vandalism and indecent exposure. He is due in court July 7.
The theft has left Brashears stressed and shaken. The one-time motor maintenance team chief said he has been on edge since the incident.
“I’ve been on wires this whole week, not getting too much sleep, kind of on alert status,” he said. “[Burks] said he was moved by the national anthem to do something patriotic and his patriotic act was to steal a veteran’s flagpole and flags and streak naked.”
Brashears has asked for an apology. He remains waiting, he said.
“I hope that he learns from this lesson how it was not a good choice to … steal a flag, our nation’s colors, from a veteran’s house [or] from any home,” Brashears said.
