LEWISBURG, Pa. — A Civil War re-enactment company that carries a Confederate flag in public events has withdrawn from a parade that draws 25,000 spectators as the national conflict over the symbol continues in the aftermath of a white supremacist massacring nine blacks last week.

Jeff Swanger, of New Berlin, Pennsylvania, said Thursday a coordinator with the Union County, Pennsylvania Veterans Fourth of July parade contacted him and asked that his 18th North Carolina Company A group not fly the flag after a story about the group was published on Wednesday.

Swanger’s group has been part of several Union County Veterans Fourth of July parades but will miss the 21st annual march Saturday.

Parade coordinator Chris Hilkert told Swanger that his group can’t follow parade rules, don’t come, Swanger said.

“At this point, I don’t want to be in that parade,” Swanger said Thursday. “If that’s how people feel about it, maybe we shouldn’t be a part of it.”

Parade committee President Kevin Bittenbender said Thursday that standard operating procedure prohibits offensive material from the event.

Usually, that wouldn’t include the Confederate flag, considered part of American history, he said.

However, the flag has been the center of controversy after nine African-Americans were killed June 17 in Charleston, South Carolina, by white supremacist Dylann Roof, who appears in photos with the Confederate flag.

Some Southern states have removed the flag, and national retailers eBay and Wal-Mart said they’ll no longer sell merchandise that bears it.

Parade executives decided it was best the Confederate flag not make any appearance in this year’s event, Bittenbender said. “We asked them not to march with the flag,” he said. “We want them to mark without it and represent their soldiers.”

Parade committee members “have no heartburn with the flag, but there are people who associate it as symbol of hatred,” Bittenbender said. “If the events in Charleston hadn’t transpired, we’d likely not be having this discussion.”

The Confederate flag “is part of history, right or wrong,” he said. “We can talk about this and debate it, come to terms about it. But until we have an opportunity to do so, I made a decision: We want your organization to march but we wish not with the flag. There are other ways we can represent the soldiers of the South.”

The parade isn’t about creating controversy, Bittenbender said.

“We’re here to honor our vets and price they paid for our freedoms and our nation,” he said. “That’s what we want this to be about. We want to honor Confederate soldiers because they were soldiers, too. A solider is a soldier.” This year’s event pays tribute to those of the Vietnam War.

Swanger said his company includes the flag for historic accuracy, not to make a point.

“We are living historians,” he said. “We are here to teach history. Every single parade we’re a part of, we’ve had a lot of great feedback — until now.

“I wasn’t personally willing to put it down,” Swanger said, “not to make a point, but it’s part of the Confederacy.”

Swanger’s group includes a float and three re-enactors and their families, he said.

Bittenbender said there are several groups representing the South in the parade. A float that features Civil War generals Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee includes the Confederate flag, but an American flag of the times will be placed over it for this year’s parade.

“We want the Civil War to be represented,” Bittenbender said. “But until we get a firm handle on the flag issue, we’re going to put an America flag over it.”

Bittenbender is an active veterans advocate, especially of those wounded in action, and is angered the flag issue is eclipsing matters of importance to vets.

“If you want to touch of subject of importance, talk about veterans health care, their mental health,” he said, noting on average 22 veterans take their lives daily owning to post-traumatic stress disorder. “Let’s bring that to the forefront and make that the controversy rather than being off on a tangent, when there are other issues that really effect folks in the here and now.”

“We don’t want anything to be offensive, of course,” he said. “We don’t want this to be the center of thought.”

Socha and Strawser write for the Sunbury (Pennsylvania) Daily Item.