Tag: Sacrifice

This country will not be a good place for any of us to live in unless we make it a good place for all of us to live in.
~ Theodore Roosevelt

What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected, now shines on the stream:
Tis the star-spangled banner…
~Francis Scott Key – excerpt from the rarely sung second verse

I grew up with a flag pole in our front yard; the American flag was raised every morning by my WWII veteran father and lowered at dusk every evening. This was far more than a ritual for my father; he saw it as his obligation and privilege after the three years he spent as a Marine officer in the South Pacific. He had the freedom, as well as the necessity, to declare our hard-won liberty to any who passed by. The flag was his reminder, a tangible symbol of having fought beneath it, watching others shed blood and die for it.

My father was not one to weep – ever. But his eyes filled up when we visited the original The Star-Spangled banner in its display at the Smithsonian Institute in the 1960s, and again as we stood before the Iwo Jima Memorial Marine flag-raising sculpture. The fact the flag meant so much to him is impressed and imprinted upon me.

He would have been horrified at how the flag is currently misused as a symbol of “my patriotism is more true and pure than yours” — it was displayed like a talisman by the rioters who stormed the Capitol building on January 6, 2021. The American flag has been through many tough times since it was designed – during my lifetime it was burned as an expression of free speech and ignored when people are asked to recite “The Pledge of Allegiance.”

The flag now seems to be Exhibit A representing our deep divisions rather than our unity.

June 14 (Flag Day) no longer has the impact that it had over a century ago when it was first declared, observing the day in 1777 the Second Continental Congress passed a resolution to create a flag for the new United States. My mother, growing up in the isolation of the Palouse wheat farms in eastern Washington state, would reminisce about Depression-era Flag Day parades, picnics and celebrations in the small farming communities of Waverly and Fairfield. It was a mere warm up for the all-out patriotic gatherings planned for July 4 – indeed a community on display.

As I place our flag out on our porch today, I am honoring it as a symbol of a country which values the freedoms of all people.

May this banner fly proudly for many generations to come.
Here is the proof, through all the dark and contentious nights of our country’s history, that our flag is still here.

Let’s ensure this is a good place for all of us to live in.