LAGUNA BEACH : Showing the Flag Is His Way of Life

Every July 4, Grant McCombs joins other veterans at the corner of Legion Street and Coast Highway at 6:30 a.m. to begin placing American Flags around town.

For McCombs, the flag activity is in keeping with his 365-day persona, rather than a once-a-year gesture. When an old war injury sidelined McCombs 16 years ago, the veteran of three wars turned his energies to his community--with a vengeance.

At 72, the retired colonel is commander of the Laguna Beach American Legion post, serves on committees for city parking, library and beautification, delivers hot meals to the homebound and represents the city on the board of the Orange County Vector Control District.

McCombs was picked Patriot of the Year for the 1990 Laguna Beach Patriot’s Day Parade in February. “I was pretty flattered, I’ll tell you,” he said.

As an aviator, McCombs logged 10,000 flight hours during 33 years in the Marine Corps--including stints in the Pacific in World War II, Korea and Vietnam.

Not surprisingly, he favors the effort to create a constitutional amendment to prohibit flag burning.

“I feel the flag is more than a piece of cloth,” he said. “I think it’s a symbol that represents the country and everybody in it and what we all stand for. I don’t look at it as an icon. When I see a flag, I see America.”

While McCombs, who is married and has four grown children, said he enjoys distributing meals and visiting people who are housebound and sometimes lonely, he speaks with particular pride of his duties as American Legion post commander, a position he has held for three years.

Among his favorite post duties is the annual trek that American Legion members make to veterans’ hospitals to gather patients, many of whom are confined to wheelchairs, for dinner and a viewing of the Laguna Beach Pageant of the Masters.

McCombs also helps select the local youth to receive an Americanism award each year. On Veteran’s Day, he visits elementary schools and talks to youngsters. It’s an opportunity, he says, to “beat the drum on family values” and patriotism.

“I try to point out to them,” he said, “that there’s nothing wrong with doing something for your country once in a while.”