That did the trick.  I shutdown to single user mode 
(note: need to do this at console), then I could chflags 
and newsyslog as needed.

Next I need to figure out why the rc scripts do not do 
this properly!

Thank you for all of the help!

Regards,
Dave

 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: Simon Burge <simonb@NetBSD.org>
> David Albert wrote:
> 
> > 
> > > This last almost sounds like you've got some funny flags set on
> > > the file and/or directory (clutching at straws here!).  What
> > > does "ls -loa /var/log" show?  "mount -vv" and "df" output may be
> > > helpful too...
> > >
> > > One more option might be to boot to single user mode and
> > > "fsck -f /dev/..." for the partition where your /var lives to
> > > make sure there's nothing wrong with the filesystem.
> > >
> > > Cheers,
> > > Simon.
> > >   
> > I think you've hit on it....the sappnd flag is set for both the directory
> > and the files in question.  So now how do I turn off this flag?
> 
> Use "chflags -R nosappnd /var/log".  See init(8) though - you need to
> be at securelevel 0 or -1 to do this.  If securelevel is 1 or greater,
> it's easiest to do this in single user mode.
> 
> Cheers,
> Simon.