In addition to it being the Birthday of our Army, it is also Flag Day...but obviously all of you here know that.
A friend of mine wrote a little column for his own site. I thought you'd all enjoy it.
Of Flags And Freedom
(c) Brad Pardee
Today, June 14th, is Flag Day. It has been celebrated since the 1880s. In 1916, President Wilson established Flag Day by Presidential Proclamation, and in 1949, President Truman signed into law an act which designated June 14th as "Flag Day".*
There was a time when people honored the flag by doing things like standing at attention and removing their hats as it passed by. Sadly, most parades will give you an opportunity to see firsthand that these customs have either been forgotten or disregarded.
More troubling, though, is the way people in this country have decided that the way to protest actions by our government is to burn the flag. I've seen footage of it during the Vietnam War, and I've read news stories about it happening during the current war in Iraq.
Now I believe in the freedom of speech and the freedom of expression. If people are only allowed to express their views of the government when they are in agreement, that's not freedom.
However, the flag is not, nor has it ever been, the symbol of a government or a political party or an administration. It is, rather, the symbol of the American people.
When you burn the flag, you aren't just showing your disregard or disapproval of President Bush, or the war in Iraq, or any of the other people or policies of our government. Quite the opposite, in fact.
When you burn the flag, you show disrespect for the symbol of our very identity as a nation. The flag flown at Fort McHenry during the War of 1812 was commissioned by the fort's commanding officer, Major George Armistead, who ordered " a flag so large that the British will have no difficulty in seeing it from a distance." Measuring 30 feet by 42 feet, it was one of the largest battle flags ever made, and it was this flag that moved Francis Scott Key to write "The Star-Spangled Banner".
When you burn the flag, you're showing disrespect for the members of our military who have fought and died for your freedoms, such as the Marines who fought their way from island to bloody island before they were able to raise the American flag on Iwo Jima in latter days of World War II.
When you burn the flag, you show disrespect for the sacrifice not only of our military men and women, but heroes like those who sacrificed their lives in order to save those that they could from the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.
Despite it's regular appearance at political events, and despite the efforts of those of every political stripe to try to appropriate its image to advance their own particular views and agendas, the flag has always been about a nation, not a government. It has always been a symbol of freedom, not of ideology.
Those who fail to understand this and try to burn the flag have the constitutional right to do so. However, the flag they wish to burn is the very symbol of the freedom that enables them to do so. Place their symbolic act next to the symbol they wish to destroy, and there is no question that they are the ones who come up lacking in the comparison.
The Star-Spangled Banner? Long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Copyright 2005 Brad Pardee (
http://www.geocities.com/onemanwatching). Permission given to forward provided that this copyright notice remains intact.
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