Flags for Heroes celebrates heroes among us

Hilbert "Hibbie" Hayslett knows heroes come in all shapes and forms.

The 21-year Air Force veteran crossed paths with many heroes throughout a career that took him to Thailand during the Vietnam War, Taiwan and Iran as well as air bases throughout the U.S.

Hayslett and his wife Jerrianne are members of the Rotary Club of Mitchell Field, which is organizing a display of 200 American flags at the Oak Creek Community Center for the Memorial Day holiday. Flags for Heroes raises money by sponsoring flags with a name tag of the hero and the person whose life was touched by the hero.

Hayslett was a U.S. Air Force adviser to the Iranian air force at a time when Iran spent millions of dollars on American military equipment. He arrived with his wife and three children, ages 13 to 2, in July 1978 and the family moved into a third-floor apartment in the capital of Tehran.

Within months, as protests mounted against the shah, Hayslett and his family noticed newspapers shutting down, curfews, nightly power outages and "Go Home Damn Yankees" graffiti. On New Year's Eve, Jerrianne Hayslett learned she and her three children would be evacuated two days later. 

Hibbie Hayslett continued to go to work, but on Jan. 16, 1979, he was in a meeting when the phone rang and someone said the shah had just left the country.

"That was sort of the beginning of the end," Hayslett, who lives in South Milwaukee, remembered.

In February of that year, he heard revolutionaries had broken into the armory and taken weapons and he saw a tank driving through the streets of Tehran. He was at his apartment when he looked out the window and saw armed men running across the roofs of nearby buildings. He locked himself in his bathroom and waited. No one came.

Hours later, as he left the apartment, Hayslett knocked on the door of a second-floor apartment where he knew a man named Mahmoud was house-sitting. Mahmoud — he didn't learn his last name — told him revolutionaries had come to his apartment and asked if there were any Americans living there.

Mahmoud told them the American who lived there had already left.

"I really believe he saved my husband's life," said Jerrianne Hayslett.

Added Hibbie Hayslett: "That, to me, was the basic kind of persons Iranians were. He had the decency to say I didn't live there. He was a decent man."

Hibbie Hayslett went to the American embassy and was airlifted out of Iran a few days later; when his commercial jet cleared Iranian airspace, passengers cheered just like in the Oscar-winning film "Argo."

Months later, the American embassy was overrun and the revolutionaries took 52 Americans hostage for more than a year. Hayslett knew he had been in the wrong place at the wrong time but had managed to flee and it was gut-wrenching seeing what happened to Americans who were not able to get out.

"It was just heart-rending, having been there and knowing the general circumstances they were going through," said Hibbie Hayslett. "There are so many people in my life who have done something kind. That's why I like Rotary — being part of something positive."

This is the second year the Rotary Club of Mitchell Field has sponsored Flags for Heroes, an event that started several years ago in Maryland. Tamara Morgan belonged to a Rotary Club in Delaware that organized a Flags for Heroes tribute and when Morgan moved back to the Milwaukee area and joined the Mitchell Field group, she suggested doing it here.

Last year, 100 flags were placed outside the Oak Creek Community Center. This year there are 200, including 100 donated by Eder Flag, an Oak Creek-based flag manufacturer.

It costs $50 to sponsor a hero, with the money used to support Rotary programs including scholarships to graduating local high school seniors, Thanksgiving baskets for families, a senior prom held on the last Sunday of April and other initiatives.

Morgan said the first Flags for Heroes donation this year was in honor of someone who donated a kidney. There are also donations for teachers, Oak Creek police officers involved in the response to the Sikh temple shooting and military veterans, said Morgan, chairwoman of the Flags for Heroes campaign.

Last year, Jerrianne Hayslett bought a flag in memory of her grandfather, a World War I ambulance driver and Hibbie Hayslett purchased one for an uncle who fought in the Battle of the Bulge during World War II.

"The flag is a wonderful way to make you think of someone who gave you a helping hand," said Hibbie Hayslett. 

If you go

The opening ceremony for Flags For Heroes is 5:30 p.m. Thursday at Oak Creek Community Center, 8580 S. Howell Ave. To sponsor a flag for someone for $50, send an email to info@rcomf.org or check out Rotary Club of Mitchell Field's website, rcomf.org.