A Waterloo veteran has spent the past year crafting American flags, placing a special focus on quality, domestic craftwork and giving back to his fellow vets.

Originally from Prairie du Rocher, Jeffery DeRousse found himself in the U.S. Navy straight out of high school when he spoke with a Navy recruiter his senior year.

He started basic training at Great Lakes Naval Station in Chicago in 1990 before moving on to air crewman school.

Jeff ended up spending five years in the Navy as a flight engineer for the P-3 Orion aircraft.

He bounced around quite a bit during his service, with a year in Iceland, several months in South America, as well as some time in Central America – namely Honduras, Panama and Peru – and in Europe – largely in France and the Netherlands.

Jeff moved back home to Randolph County, working at Red Bud Industries for a time before attending Southwestern Illinois College to study computer information systems.

With over 20 years of experience in various IT positions, including his current job focusing on network infrastructure, Jeff found a place for himself in Waterloo with his wife Carrie.

Sometime ago, Jeff found himself with a tattered flag outside his home. Hoping to make his own solution to the problem, Jeff founded Battlefield Flag Company.

“I looked out at the flag pole about a year and a half ago and saw that our flag needed to be replaced,” Jeff said. “I said to myself ‘I think I could make a replacement flag.’ And so I discussed that with my wife. After we talked about it and did some research, we ended up getting our first sewing machine.”

His sister-in-law Patty DeRousse added a bit more story to the business’ beginnings. She noted Jeff spent some time searching for a flag that met his standards of quality that was also made domestically.

As she tells it, along with his own sense of patriotism, his inability to find such a flag led him to start making his own.

“His ultimate goal is actually just to create a product that he wasn’t able to find himself,” Patty said. “He’s a Navy veteran and comes from a long line of veterans on both sides of his family, and he really just loves American flags, Americana, loves our country, very patriotic.”

It was a slow start, according to Jeff. 

The first seven to eight months after he decided to start making flags were spent on all the prep work that goes into the process: tracking down domestic manufacturers for materials, getting all the right tools together and familiarizing himself with the process of actually handcrafting the flags.

With a handful of flags under his belt, however, Jeff said he and his wife decided to dive right into the business.

“We made a few test flags first, and we saw that ‘Yep, this is definitely something that we can do,’” Jeff said, “and then we committed to making, well, we’re working on a few hundred of them right now, and that was our start.”

For Jeff and the other veterans involved in Battlefield Flag Company, domestic craftsmanship and quality are two of the biggest commitments when it comes to putting the flags together.

Jeff noted the importance of making sure a flag can handle a lot of exposure to the elements.

He also expressed a frustration with the ubiquity of foreign-made flags.

“If a person goes out there and doesn’t pay close attention, there’s a lot of U.S. flags that are made overseas,” Jeff said. “So that was a driving part of it, it was another opportunity to ensure that U.S.-made flags were being produced and benefitting the United States rather than a foreign country.”

He further explained the commitment to ensuring his flags are entirely domestically produced, specifically noting how New American Embroidery in South Carolina has helped in supplying the star fields for Battlefield Flag Company’s flags.

“All the materials, the nylon, the threads, the grommets, every part of the flag, when we set out, it was gonna be materials that had to be sourced from the U.S.,” Jeff said.

As a veteran, Jeff also described his need to give back to other veterans and organizations who support those veterans.

“It was important for us, if we could make these flags that these veterans go out and sacrifice for, that we would, every sale that we do we provide a portion of that back to veteran organizations,” Jeff said. “So we knew that by us making these U.S. sourced flags, veteran-made, that we would also be able to give back to the veterans who are still out there making the sacrifices.”

Currently, Battlefield Flag Company has predominantly partnered with Mission 22 – a non-profit focused on veteran mental health and other care – though they’ve also done some work with LifeWaters – a non-profit which offers scuba diving and similar experiences for paralyzed veterans, first responders and civilians.

Patty spoke quite highly of Jeff and all the work that’s been put into the flag company.

She remarked on his many late nights working on the flags – effectively serving as a second job for him – while also commending him for giving back to veterans like he has.

“He’s just a really really incredible person,” Patty said. “I’m very, very proud of this company and very proud of the work that he and his wife have put into it.”

Though the company is currently pushing to put together several hundred flags as Jeff said, he added the business isn’t overwhelmingly successful at the moment.

“We don’t have a big customer base at this point,” Jeff said. “We’ve got about eight or nine hundred people that are following us on our social media page, but that hasn’t turned to customers at this point.”

He noted the coming summer months will hopefully bring a bit more of a demand for the flags, and he ultimately hopes to make a full-time job of the company.

Jeff also said he hopes the company is able to grow, potentially getting more business in the St. Louis area while also partnering with local businesses in the community and making an appearance in various big events in Waterloo.

“We do want it to benefit the community, Waterloo and Monroe County,” Jeff said. “We want this to be more than just a business that we’re doing. We want this to be something that the whole community is proud of.”

For more information on Battlefield Flag Company, visit battlefieldflagco.com.