29 November 2016

OUR FLAG FLAP

OUR FLAG FLAP
by Andy Weddington
Monday, 28 November 2016




The American flag represents all of us and all the values we hold sacred. Adrian Cronauer



American "professional" football players take a knee during our National Anthem and before our flag.

Cameras pay attention and the players garner headlines and spark a national "conversation." 

Youth ape their idols' "example." And, too, make the public eye. 

On a basketball court a singer of our National Anthem took a knee. Same, same 15 minutes, if that, of fame. 

Protesters spit and trample upon and burn our flag. There's always a camera present. 

After college students half-staffed the campus flag following the election of Mr. Donald Trump, and others burned our flag on Veterans Day, the "leadership" of the small school in Massachusetts decided our flag will not be flown. 

Their logic goofy. But national coverage has been going on since. Just this evening more and about the mass of veterans who showed up, carrying flags, in protest. 

Meanwhile ...

Americans, volunteers mind you, killed in combat abroad return home draped with our flag. At least one just in time for Thanksgiving. Families grieve. 

Americans celebrate such men and women. 

At our table we set a setting honoring family gone and our fallen uniformed countrymen.  

Is it lost on the football players, youth, singers, college students, and administrators that for the sacrifices of the volunteers (and their families) they are free to behave so stupidly?

Are they so shallow in thought as to not understand the flag they abhor is the symbol of the freedom that allows them to so disrespect and desecrate it?

Do they not understand but for our flag they could not so carry on?

I have listened to some of these people - athletes and college students. 

They are ignorant. 

For their ignorance, stupid.

It's not at all complicated but depth of thought required. 

Adrian Cronauer's opening sentiment is not only germane but exacting - for values is not specified. 

That is, to each his own. 

Same flag. 

Therefore, our flag represents not some but all of us; even the feeble-minded incapable of comprehending our flag's beautiful comprehensiveness. 

As such, everyone has a duty to safeguard it - with life, if need be. 

Otherwise, freedom to leave our country.

And leave our flag to flap.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well said Andy. Only two words necessary... Semper Fidelis!

Jim said...

The NFL and the NBA are all about money, nothing else. Why else would the NFL even contemplate holding a Super Bowl overseas? I enjoy watching the NFL from the comfort of my living room, I do not watch the NBA. I prefer WNBA as well as Women's College basketball (Go Lay Vols). I will pay to see the women play, it's real basketball, like the NBA used to be, since the male players are so tall they should raise the net another foot. Now to my point, I stopped going to NFL games when the costs approached the ridiculous, but now money isn't the reason I refuse to go. It's because of the knee benders, the idiots who forsake our flag, while the NFL, owners, and coaches do nothing. I wonder what Bear Bryant would have done had one of his players taken a knee during our Anthem? Care to guess?