A MC-12W Intelligence, Surveillance & Reconnaissance (ISR) plane flew over Kandahar Airfield in the Kandahar Province of Afghanistan on August 19.

Aboard the tactical manned-ISR platform was some special cargo.

An American flag, flown in combat, was stored on the plane. It (and another combat flag) now rests in Troy High School, in Principal Jacob Francom’s office.

The flags were given to Troy by Francom’s brother-in-law, U.S. Air Force Capt. Kenneth Burgi.

“As mission commander, I usually extend offers to family and friends to fly a flag in their name during a combat mission,” Burgi wrote in an email. “When [Francom] asked to have two flags flown for Troy Junior and Senior High School, I couldn’t refuse.”

Burgi, serving his third deployment in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom, has been in the Air Force for nine years and was serving with the 361st Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron in Kandahar as part of Project Liberty (an ISR project meant to collect and analyze battlefield data).

The captain is stationed at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, as a C-17 pilot, but was selected to the project in Kandahar.

Francom was thankful for the flags and is planning on flying one on Veteran’s Day.

“It gives us pride in what we do,” Francom said. “We have a lot of kids who go into the military. It helps them recognize that freedom isn’t free. It’s cliché, but true.”

Troy recently replaced its old rotting flagpole with a new one, and the flag will proudly fly over the school. The other will be put in THS’s gym.

“The flags each have a certificate signed by my crew at the end of the mission,” Burgi wrote. “The crew consists of two officers, both pilots and one being the mission commander, and two enlisted airmen that run all the mission equipment.”

Burgi, a 32-year-old San Diego native who earned his bachelors and masters from Michigan Tech in electrical engineering, earned his wings in 2007 and has been flying ever since.