bjturk.commentary: where are the flags?

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this bjturk.commentary:
where are the flags?

Yesterday, we here in the United States celebrated Memorial Day. It's a day when Americans pause to reflect upon the sacrifices made by those who have died in service to this country. Often, there are speeches, parades, and flags waving everywhere, but it only occcurs once a year.

Less than three years ago, after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, there were lots of flags flying then too. Nearly every home flew the Stars and Stripes. Most businesses had one in the front window or on a pole outside. Cars were adorned with flags as stickers, printed cards in the windows, or flying from the radio antenna or small poles attached to a window. Some trucks bore flags flying from improvised poles set up in the truck bed. There was even a flag in the upper-left corner of the newspaper every day.

But that was then. Now, the flags are much more rare than before. Those on homes became tattered and worn and were therefore rightly retired, but not replaced. They disappeared from the front windows of stores and the windows of cars. The small car flags, like those on homes, became tattered and also disappeared. The trucks no longer bear flags, nor the poles that once held them. Except for those flying at government buildings, school and some banks, the flags were mostly gone once again.

As the horror of September 11, 2001, passes into memory, does the patriotism that it spawned also so readily fade? The nation remains at war, though the enemy is considered to be vanquished. The fear of terrorism is real and unabated, and remains an threat to all. The need to present a united front is no less great than before, but the united front is no longer as obvious as it once was.

Why is a sense of patriotism so transient? We who are Americans are always Americans, which may be partly to blame. Americans, generally, only like winners and can't stand losers. We bask in victory but shun defeat. There is no such thing as an acceptable consolation prize to Americans. Now that there is so much coming out about the dubious rationale for the Iraq invasion, and the abuse of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, it seems that many people have jumped off the "Go America" bandwagon. It seems like Americans tend to be "fair weather" patriots, and it's crap. Americans are always Americans, even when it isn't fashionable to be American. The pride comes from within.

To this day, when I am not wearing a t-shirt with the flag on it, I am usually found with a flag pin on my shirt collar. I have never been ashamed to be an American, and I have never feared being shunned for being one. I am proud to be a citizen of the United States, and I am proud that the flag I wear on my collar is the flag under which I once served, and remain ready to defend. And after an absence (because I couldn't find them anymore), my car again flies a flag from a small pole attached to a window. In the rear window are a flag sticker, and another sticker shaped like a bow of stars and stripes ribbon that reads "God Bless America."

That's just once place where there are still flags. There are others, though. Each Memorial Day, soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, and volunteers by the score place small American flags at the headstone of every grave of every military member in every national military cemetery, in the United States and abroad. From coast to coast, and many places overseas, thousands upon thousands of graves of American servicemen and servicewomen fly the flag that each once served, and for which many died. Those hallowed gardens of stone billow in the red, white and blue. In God's name and by God's grace, we honor them and remember them.

For that's where the flags are.

June 1, 2004

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