News
Police replace stolen flag that flew for late veteran

VERGENNES — Vergennes Police Sergeant Adam O’Neill knew quickly on New Year’s Eve that the woman calling the station was upset.
City homeowner Tracy Tembreull was reporting the theft of an item from her family’s South Maple Street front porch. It was an item that in one way could be replaced for just $30 or $40.
But, in another way, it was irreplaceable.
Someone had stolen an American flag, but not just any flag.
Tembreull had bought this particular flag in 2018 to honor the memory of her brother, Derek Klobucher. He was a Purple Heart veteran who had taken his own life on Memorial Day, 2018. To Tembreull and her husband, Mark, and their four children, the flag also honored all veterans who struggle after they return home.

DEREK KLOBUCHER
“The meaning behind it really stems from my brother,” Tembreull told the Independent. “It was my family’s way to honor and remember him, along with others that have served.”
On this past New Year’s Eve, the family was taking decorations off their Christmas tree and watching their favorite football team, the Detroit Lions, when they realized the flag was gone. They were stunned and upset.
All Tembreull told O’Neill on the phone about the meaning of the flag was that her brother had earned a Purple Heart and was deceased. That was enough to spur O’Neill and his fellow officers to act.
“It was one of those calls that hits a little different,” O’Neill said. “So when I got off the phone with her, and she basically just told me her brother was a Purple Heart recipient and did some tours overseas, and she was explaining the sentimental value of the flag. I told her I was very sorry to hear the flag was taken. And of course she was very emotional.”
O’Neill spoke to Officer Mark Stacey and Sgt. Patrick Greenslet about the situation.
“I turned around, and I was like, wow, that was sad,” he said. “I told (Mark) about what she told me, and Pat was right there, too. And Mark brought up the American Legion being able to do flag donations. And between Pat and me and him, we were like, that’s a great idea.”
Stacey contacted Vergennes American Legion Post 14 Steward Stephen Gebeault, who agreed to supply the flag.
On the next day, O’Neill and Stacey were able to surprise Tembreull and her family at their home under the pretext of talking to her about the case. O’Neill knocked on the porch door, and Stacey waited in the cruiser with the flag until O’Neill signaled to hop out and present the flag.
When Stacey produced the flag, it proved to be an emotional moment, especially when the officers heard Klobucher’s full story.
O’Neill and Stacey did not know Klobucher had taken his own life eight years earlier and the specific circumstances. Nor did they know about a further fatal ATV accident the day of Klobucher’s death, and the further survivor’s guilt that followed.
Tembreull described what she told the police officers on New Year’s Day.
Klobucher, like Tembreull a Michigan native, served in the U.S. Army for four years total, starting out in Texas, and then in the Iraq War as a Combat Engineer with First Cavalry Division’s 91st Engineer Battalion.
Klobucher was injured 20 years ago when his Humvee convoy came under an enemy attack. He earned his Purple Heart in that attack. One of Klobucher’s close comrades lost his life.
Tembreull said her brother carried that and other combat trauma, including survivor’s guilt, with him for years.
In 2018, on Memorial Day, Klobucher was riding with a group of people on ATVs. He was operating an ATV with a passenger, another close friend, when it crashed. Again, Klobucher survived, but his friend died in the accident.

IN 2004, TRACY Tembreull, back right, and her brother Joe Klobucher went to see her other brother, Derek Klobucher, seated with his infant niece, Audrey Tembreull, in his lap, off to his fateful deployment to Iraq.
Photo courtesy of Tracy Tembreull
Tembreull said that later the same day, her family was leaving their home to walk up to the Vergennes Memorial Day Parade when the phone rang. It was her parents calling to tell her that her brother had taken his life.
Tembreull believes that fatal ATV accident was too much for her brother to bear on top of his combat trauma.
“He had survivor guilt. Not all wounds are visible. You wouldn’t have known looking at him, but he suffered,” Tembreull said. “He didn’t talk about receiving the Purple Heart … I feel like that ATV accident was very similar also to the events in Iraq. I think he could not hold another burden of losing another friend.”
Soon, the family bought the flag and mounted it on a pillar holding up their front porch roof.
“It was just my whole family’s gesture to honor and remember him, that he’s with us,” Tembreull said. “He was close with my older two children (Audrey and Eyon, now both in college), but my younger two, they knew him, and we talk about him, but they don’t remember him quite as much.”
It made an impact on O’Neill and Stacey when they understood the full story about the flag’s meaning to the Tembreulls.
“We said we were sorry to hear about it. It’s a really sad story,” O’Neill said. “Of course, tears again. Not from us, of course.” If under oath, O’Neill is unlikely to deny crying.
Stacey was more direct.
“I got a little teary-eyed,” he said.
Stacey described how they felt to be able to give a new flag to Tracy Tembreull and her family.
“It was wonderful. She was flabbergasted,” he said.
Tembreull described the moment.
“You were brought sadness and heartache. Yet someone else can do such a small gesture to bring kindness and joy and pride back. So it was an emotional day on New Year’s Day for me,” she said.
“It was definitely a very kind gesture. It made a huge difference to know that there is still that goodness and kindness is out there when something unfortunate happens. I have to speak highly of the community of Vergennes and the people, and the police department has always tried to be involved in the community in different things,” she said. “So for them to bring us the flag from the American Legion was greatly appreciated. I didn’t have words for it, to be honest.”
Note: The Veterans Administration estimates about 8,000 veterans of U.S. Armed Services take their lives annually. The VA offers a 24/7 hotline for those considering suicide: Dial 988 and then Press 1 to chat live, or text 838255.
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