My American flag

Call me a dumb redneck, but I love the flag of the United States of America. I own a good-sized flag and I like to fly it on patriotic holidays and whenever I want to show support for our country. Sometimes, I fly it when one of our soldiers is captured, or dies. Sometimes I fly it just because I want to. It means a lot to me.

“I Pledge Allegiance to the flag”

A couple of years ago my wife and I drove to Washington DC, so we could see “The Star Spangled Banner” in all it’s antiquity and glory. While we were there, we took in all the monuments also; the Lincoln Memorial being the most magnificent.

For the life of me, I can’t understand why any citizen of this country would want to deface our flag. I don’t even want to debate it and I love a good solid educational argument. Someone may say it is a symbolic gesture of protest when they put a match to the edge of “Old Glory” and I can see that. Someone may argue it is really just a piece of cloth that over the history of our country has changed many times and I can see that also.

”of the United States of America”

What I can’t see is why they would entertain that avenue of protest or artistic expression, when there are so many other ways to get a point across. Our enemies burn and deface our flag. Watch a demonstration in a foreign country and sure enough, out will come an American flag and the next thing you know, someone is lighting it off. Never mind that the good old US of A has nothing to do with what they are mad about. Something in me both cringes and angers when I see the symbol of our freedom go up in smoke at the hand of a person who has no idea what this country is.

Recently in Clarksville, Tennessee, home of the U.S. Army’s Fort Campbell, an art student of Austin Peay State University by the name of William Gentry exhibited, of all things, a deep-fried American flag, complete with peanut oil and black pepper. His inspiration for the piece was the result of his deep concern for the wave of obesity in America. This didn’t bode well in Clarksville, as most of the citizens there have loved ones who defend that piece of material in the very countries where it is burned.

“and to the Republic for which it stands,”

The exhibit featured three U.S. flags imprinted with phrases such as "Poor people are obese because they eat poorly" and more than 40 smaller flags fried in peanut oil, egg batter, flour and black pepper.

When the Museum Director took it down, just 18 hours after it appeared, Mr. Gentry was quoted as saying "I hope they are upset, but I hope they don't miss the point".

Now it’s time to show my indignation to Mr. Gentry, or what I like to call plain old common sense. I missed the point, because I could not see past the oily American flag.

I’d like to have a word in the back room with Mr. Gentry and as Louis L'Amour was fond of saying
“read to him from the Book”. Our freedoms and liberties allow us to do some things that common sense and propriety should forbid. I want to repeat that, because in this day and age of putting political correctness ahead of everything else, we forget what American liberty really means.

”one Nation under God, indivisible,”

“Our freedoms and liberties allow us to do some things that common sense and propriety should forbid”.

Many, many American servicemen and women have died or been beaten for that red, white and blue, star-sewn symbol of our liberty and freedoms and it is the ultimate insult to cheapen it, regardless of how artistic or outraged a person is. Abusing our flag as an expression of free speech just seems wrong to me.

”with liberty and justice for all.”

Freedom of speech is often cited when someone in our country wants to destroy or deface our flag and I can’t and won’t argue the legal issues involved. What I will argue and defend is what this great country stands for and our share of the reward, blame and responsibility as citizens. We should never forget the blood sacrifice our flag represents and if we can do that, we will never entertain the idea of turning it into a peanut-soaked exhibit or set it on fire in protest.

I grew up in this country, starting every school morning, by putting my right hand over my heart and pledging allegiance to this symbolic piece of cloth and in my heart, I still believe the message in the pledge.