The Ming Report

Old Glory

March 12, 2002 - There was an old 48 star flag in the storage room in our office building. It had lain there along one wall since it was retired from active service when Alaska and Hawaii became states a half-century ago. It had flown when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and day and night thereafter. It had flown when the bunker fell in Berlin and when the bombs fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It had flown when Americans landed at Pusan and defended the perimeter and while that war wound down to talking at Pyongyang. Then it lay in the dust, in a basement, retired and nearly forgotten.

It seemed right that it would again feel the breeze and gleam in the light on September 11th. It was the flag to which I learned to pledge allegiance "and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." So it was that the flag of my childhood stood proudly outside our office door. It was a symbol of the nation that had sacrificed so much through the years of bitter war and that would not be vanquished. It flew as my symbol that a nation dedicated to each life, to liberty for mankind and the right of each to pursue happiness would not be brought low by those who could send men out to waste their precious lives on a fools errand of destruction. It flew there out side a lawyer's door to say to all who saw it that America was not crippled, not dismayed and never cowed. It flew there day and night for more than a month when the winds of an October storm lifted its staff from its socket and carried it away. Where it came to earth no one knows. We only know that it is gone, blown away on the winds of October.

Much of the "Republic for it stands" went flying away with the flag on those October winds. Griping about the government, the umpire and the referee used to be as American as mom's apple pie. Now praising the President for his handling of the war so far but suggesting that support for expanding the war would depend upon the President justifying any new conflict is called abetting the enemy. It used to be that the citizen had a right to privacy that the government was bound to respect. Now anybody who suggests that the government must justify intrusions must be at best an apologist for terrorists and at worst a traitor with something to hide. Liberty and Justice for all has become Liberty if you agree with us and Justice at the end of a rope if you do not.

I hope some one has found that old flag of mine. It is a reminder of the days when being an American patriot meant something other than quietly following the Judas goat. If you found Old Glory then look around will you. Somewhere out the is The Republic for which it stands - one Nation - indivisible - with Liberty and Justice for all.