Flagman coming for fallen soldier

GENTRY - Larry “the flagman” Eckhardt is coming to Gentry to line the route of returning fallen Marine Lance Cpl. Benjamin W. Tuttle with 2,380 American Flags.

He is asking for volunteers to meet him - including some with pickup trucks - at the Gentry City Park on Wednesday, July 24, at 4:30 p.m., to start planting the flags.

“I am coming to help the citizens of Gentry pay respect to one of their own,” Eckhardt said.

Eckhardt is planning to line the funeral procession route with flags, beginning their placement on Wednesday afternoon and evening and leaving them up until about 5 p.m. on Thursday. That’s when Eckhardt needs to get under way to another fallen soldier’s funeral - this one in Ohio on Friday.

Lance Cpl. Tuttle’s body will be brought to Gentry early Thursday morning, sometime before 7:30 a.m., for public viewing at the First Baptist Church, at 221 West Main Street, from 8 a.m. until noon on Thursday. His funeral service will be at 2 p.m. Thursday at the First Baptist Church, with burial following at Coffelt Cemetery in the Vaughn area.

A representative from the Benton County Funeral Home said the expected funeral route procession would be along Arkansas Highway 12, which means the route will be lined with miles of American Flags in honor of Lance Cpl. Tuttle.

For the past seven years, Eckhardt has been driving miles across the country from his home in northern Illinois to honor fallen U.S. soldiers by lining funeral routes with flags in honor of American soldiers who have died or been killed in support of their country’s war efforts in the Middle East.

“It’s the least we can do to honor these fallen soldiers,” Eckhardt said. “I told my daughter I may come home some day completely broke, but I’ll still feel good about what I’ve done,” he added.

Lance Cpl. Benjamin W. Tuttle, 19, of Gentry, died July 14 at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany following a medical evacuation from the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz during a scheduled port visit in the 5th Fleet. The incident is under investigation, according to a news release.

Tuttle was assigned to Marine Aircraft Group 11, 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing at Marine Corps Air Station in Miramar, Calif.

Tuttle was a 2012 graduate of Gentry High School.