Squirrels: Patriotic? Or something more sinister...

Every Memorial Day, volunteers at the Mount Hope Cemetery in Michigan, place tiny American flags near the graves of the nearly 1,000 veterans who make their final resting place in the Port Huron cemetery, 55 miles northeast of Detroit.

This year, puzzled workers at the cemetery noticed that a few of the little flags had been torn off their wooden staffs, which stood empty on the ground. One day Ron Ceglarek, superintendent of the cemetery, noticed a furry-tailed intruder scurrying away with a piece of a flag. He followed the culprit to its lair, 45 feet up in a large spruce tree, and had to laugh when he saw the squirrels pad, all decked out in red, white and blue.

"He plucks them right off," said Ceglarek. "If I didn't see it, and I didn't follow the squirrel, I never would have believed it."

While some people are calling the squirrel "patriotic" and others are making disparaging remarks by saying "he probably just wanted to have something to wipe his butt on", others, myself included, feel that this incident of grave robbing is just another example of the fact that

Squirrels are Violent Cannabilistic Criminals.

Case (or cases) in point:

A fierce squirrel attacked a boy in a park in Mountain View, CA simply to take away the little 4-year old's muffin. The poor little boy, bitten and scratched, had to undergo a painful series of rabies vaccinations. Several babies were also attacked at this same park, when squirrels jumped into their strollers and began scratching and biting at them.

A grown man, riding his motorcycle down a residential street, was attacked by what authorities are calling a "Demon Squirrel". Read story here.

And last, but not least, while on a camping trip near Graeagle, CA my family and I witnessed a squirrel steal a nut from a chipmunk by biting it's face off and stealing the nut inside it's mouth. We spoke to the park ranger about the incident, and he told us that he had heard reports of cannabilism in squirrels but had never seen it first hand. He seemed genuinely disappointed that he had not been around to experience the vicious act. Creepy. He'd make a good character for a Stephen King novel, I think.