Bell's Old Glory Shop

If you're a loyal follower of my blog, you know who this handsome guy is....

And for those who don't read my blog, I'll introduce you to him!

This guy is Staff Sergeant Vincent Bell.

He's a hard charging, motivated, and hard core United States freaking Marine!

Nick and Vince attended Marine Corps recruit training together, field artillery school together, and eventually found themselves together again at 11th Marines on Camp Pendleton, Ca.

 After deployments they were back together at the artillery training school (ATS) as instructors. 

Their favorite thing to do together was ride their crotch rockets. 

Nick left for the drill field, then returned to ATS as a student this time and Vince as his instructor in the Marine Corps' new high mobility artillery rocket system. 

In November of 2011, shortly before Nicks second deployment to Afghanistan, Vince (while in Afghanistan) stepped on an improvised explosive device while on patrol and gave his life for our country. 

It has been Nicks lifelong quest to keep his memory and his name alive, so we named Mattis after him... Mark Vincent Romer.

Pretty amazing guy, right?

Since Vince's death, Nick has slowly learned to grieve in his own way, and on his own time.

He's always wanted to do something "more" to keep Vince's memory alive.

A few months ago, he was asked to make a flag with a pub bell on it to hang at Rudder tower on campus at Texas A&M.

He had never done anything like this before, but he was excited for the challenge.

 After some trial and error, the flag was perfect...

After showing some people the flag, he started getting requests from people to make them on as well.

After doing some research on the internet, we saw that similiar flags were selling for 300-400 dollars a piece!

We decided together that we would sell them for half of that price, and donate 10% of the proceeds to the Semper Fi Society in Vince's name.

We wanted to make them affordable for people, so that we could sell more to a wide variety of people, and really do something positive with the money.

We took the ground running, and Bells Old Glory Shop was born!

Custom hand painted Texas A&M Flag

 One we made for the Dixie Chicken!

There is so much love that goes into all of these flags.

Even our kids have a hand in them!

This is what I call Nick's "sacred place".

He's in here late into the night most nights working on his creations.

I like to think it's him spending time together with Vince as he hand cuts, and hand paints each and every flag.

We made our first donation of $250 to the Semper Fi Fund last month with the profits we made with these flags!

I love that Nick has found something to put his energy to for a positive and amazing cause.

I know Vince is looking down on Nick, and slapping him on the butt while saying, "Good game!" as he creates these works of art.

If y'all are interested in one, check out our Facebook page, and send us a message!

You can click the link above or just search "Bell's Old Glory Shop", and it'll take you there!

We would love to create an American flag, or even a custom flag just for you in honor of Vince!