Wednesday is The Day on which to fly the American flag, but any and every day it is appropriate.

Monday, June 12, 2000

Wednesday is The Day on which to fly the American flag, but any and every day it is appropriate. On no day is it appropriate to burn the flag, but this day we honor the flag by considering what it actually means to burn the flag on any day. If it is not sufficient for a protester to recognize he betrays the nation that gives him the right to protest, he ought to have the common courtesy and sensitivity to think what he is saying to thousands of other Americans.

Like me, if you would be so kind. My father, a World War I veteran and Scoutmaster, faithfully flew our home flag each holiday. Not so much what he said to my brother and me, but his very faithfulness and the look on his face taught us it had a profound meaning to him. Both the flag and flying the flag.

The moment I was old enough, I joined his troop. One of the first requirements to become a Tenderfoot Scout was the respect for the flag and practice its proper display. I clearly see in my memory the very pages of "Handbook for Boys." We pledge allegiance to the flag at the beginning of each Monday evening meeting. We did the same each day in Green Bay Avenue School.

Navy boot camp taught me nothing new about the flag, because I already had it in Boy Scouts. We did learn great precision in handling the flag. As a signalman aboard ship, I had the honor of raising and lowering the flag on the mast. Later, in Army basic training, all this was renewed. When we walked, even on pass, by a unit headquarters displaying the flag, we saluted as we passed. Throughout my 43 years in the armed forces, we stopped everything at flag raising in the morning and flag lowering in the evening. If outside at the time, we turned toward where we knew the post flag pole was and stood at attention, whether we could see it or not, and saluted. If in a vehicle, we dismounted for the honors.

I made it a point each holiday to pass by the parade ground for the thrill of seeing the huge garrison flag flying. (A thrill now diminished, alas, by those businesses that fly such a flag for advertising purposes.) When, at Fort Sheridan, I heard the special message of the death of Gen. Eisenhower, I hurried to the parade ground to watch the tearful MPs lower that flag to half-staff. Each time I conducted one of many military funerals, before I spoke I stood before the flag-draped casket and saluted. I saluted both the soldier beneath and the flag above. At the cemetery, tears came to my eyes as I saw the honor guard reverently fold the flag into a triangle and the escort officer hand it to the survivor who then hugged it to her breast where the soldier himself once lay. Those flags were not then thrown in a closet, but either secured in a treasure chest or, indeed, proudly displayed in the living room before his picture in uniform. I was chaplain to the Third Infantry who carried that flag in Arlington and guarded the tomb. One of the few requests I have made about my funeral is that the flag be on my casket.

Yet, don’t ask only me if you should burn the flag. Ask almost any veteran of the armed forces who served to defend the flag. Ask any civilian who lowers the home flag to half-staff and so honors the one who is in the forefront of his or her mind. Ask any foreign-born person who fled tyranny elsewhere to embrace – and be embraced by – freedom here and who pledged allegiance to that flag upon taking the oath of citizenship.

Ask, by reading the historical accounts, the colonial volunteer who fired back on the Union Jack so as to replace it with the stars and stripes. So, too, read the dying words of the Civil War soldier who dashed into enemy fire to scoop up a falling flag before it could hit the blood-soaked ground. Not very many World War I veterans remain, but I will tell you what my father did say. Each day 1,000 World War II veterans die, but you can yet ask them. Perhaps one who saw the flag through the smoke of battle raised over Mount Surabachi. Ask those of us who carried the flag in South Korea to defend our friend against communism. Or those who proudly flew flags from bunkers in Vietnam. Ask my son who flew the flag on his M1A1 as they advanced against Iraqi armor.

Ask any of us. Our answer: We fought so you have the right to differ from our ideas and ideals. So you can protest against our government and speak disrespectfully of our nation. We have effectively given such rights to you and paid the cost ourselves. If you burn the flag to make a statement, you use a language we just don’t understand. We’ll never get your point that way.

Can you burn our flag? Yes. Should you? Please, please don’t. We ask you.

Wallace Alcorn’s column appears Mondays