An American Flag for Their Father
Written By
Annmarie Hickey Georgopolis

www.ahg7.com

(CLICK ON EACH WORD BELOW, TO SEE THE LINK TO THAT PARTICULAR PAGE)

THE TOWN COMMON
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 22, 2005

CHILDREN'S AUTHOR WEAVES
LOVE OF FAMILY, COUNTRY AT SES

By Liz Ichizawa
Reporter

Even as a kid, Annmarie Hickey Georgopolis liked to make up stories for her eight brothers and sisters. So when her brother Reservist Lieutenant Colonel Martin "Marty" Hickey was serving in Iraq in 2003, she wrote and e-mailed him a story about their childhood on Plum Island, and based the main characters on Marty's kids, Meghan and Jonathan.

"Marty is a big, big reader. It was a little piece of home and it was about his kids, and I knew that would make him smile," she said.

Little did she know the e-mailed tale would turn into the just published children's book, "An American Flag for Their Father". Last Tuesday, Georgopolis, along with safely returned Marty, who came in uniform, shared the book and their own stories with third, fourth and fifth graders at Salisbury Elementary School, where Meghan is in fourth grade. They also signed books and handed out small American flags.

In the book, Georgopolis, who lives in East Hampstead, NH, follows the adventures of two island kids as they learn about the real meaning of patriotism, in part through their grandfather and his buddy, World War II vets. The "Grampy" character and the buddy are both based on Georgopolis' father, William Hickey, long known on Plum Island for his dedication to the American Flag. Hickey senior would reverently display the flag each day, just as "Grampy" does in the book.

"That's my father," she said. "He'd put the American Flag out and salute it. And at night he'd do just the reverse."

Hickey Senior's patriotism was not the mere flag-waving kind however. He took part in the bloody D-Day invasion at Normandy, driving a tank under the command of General Patton, and awarded the Purple Heart. He passed away in July just shy of 80.

"The book was written for Marty but it's really about our father," Georgopolis said, adding that when she read him the story, he cried.

Now, she's the one who cries, and is unable to read the book aloud, so linked is it with her beloved father.
"It's heartwarming but heart-wrenching too, because he isn't here to read it. He was a real ham. He would have loved the limelight," she added with a grin.

But her mother Ann "was really touched" and her whole close-knit clan celebrated the book's debut. For Georgopolis, the experience has been heady. Her brother recalled their mutual excitement when news came from the publisher.

"We were jumping up and down," he recalled. He added that his sister really captured their childhood in the book.

The experience has been fun for the real Meghan and her classmates, who corresponded with her father in the Middle East through e-mail. For Meghan, the mild celebrity has been both "weird" and "cool," she said. Her brother, Jonathan, a junior at Triton, who is actually older and a lot bigger than the fifth grade Jonathan in the book, thinks the whole thing is great, his aunt said. She thinks it's wonderful that her niece and nephew will be immortalized.

"They will forever be in the pages of a book in the Library of Congress," she said.

In the SES auditorium, the author read the book to the children and Marty showed a video of the hospital his unit built in Iraq. The kids were curious about Marty's experience. Did he check his boots for scorpions? Did he see people he knew get wounded or killed? Yes to both. He softened the answer to the second question - said he saw people wounded but they were taken care of at the hospital. Marty earned a bronze medal for his service.

Patriotism and military service are something of a family tradition. Georgopolis herself attended the Coast Guard Academy and was accepted to West Point, but decided a military career was not for her. Jonathan has recently received a presidential recommendation to West Point.

"That was huge," Marty said.

The story of Meghan and Jonathan's efforts to sell popsicles is right out of the author's own childhood, when her father, who was always coming up with schemes to keep his nine kids busy and out of trouble, decided to have his kids earn money selling popsicles to tourists. The family was almost an institution on the island, she said.

"Everyone knew who the Hickey's were. At church, nine kids of various heights took up a whole pew," she said.