The story behind the 911 flag: From Everett to NY

Brian Browne came into the possession of an American flag shortly after the infamous 911 attack. He never paid attention to the news, or about what happened in New York in the years after the tragedy, or that authorities were looking for one particular flag from the World Trade Center. Then one day he realized he had it — he had the 911 flag.

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The famous flag was erected by firefighters above the rubble of the World Trade Center. An iconic photo was taken of it. It made history. And then it went missing. Browne had this particular flag for eight years before he caught a mention of it on TV.

“I was putting it all together in my head — I have a 911 flag, and it’s also 3×5, and it had the same type of hardware,” Browne said. “I told my wife, ‘we have a situation here.’ She came in and said, ‘what’s wrong.’ I said the flag was missing and I’m watching this show. And I’m trying to figure out how to do this without being arrested.”

He thought about it, nervously. Did he somehow break the law? He decided to turn it in to a local fire department in Everett. The firefighters took it off his hands and he went his own way. Two years went by before the flag was authenticated. But authorities didn’t know who Browne was, and they wanted to know how it got into this mystery man’s possession. That’s when the news hit, this year — they were searching for him.

“They had a sketch of me which looks pretty good,” Browne said. “I didn’t know what to do. I was really scared.”

This is the story Browne told authorities — about how he came in possession of the flag, and what he did with it.

Brian’s 911 flag story

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