My Father’s Flag

Building Community

The flag holder is now installed on one of the columns holding up the portico by our front door. It took a while. My brother gave me the flag given to my mom in honor of my father’s World War II service, which she received upon his death. My brother had come into possession of the flag given to our family upon the death of our uncle, who served in the Battle of the Bulge during WW II. His battalion was largely wiped out. He was severely injured and spent his life with what would only much later be called PTSD. My brother did not need two flags, so he gave me one.  Yet, in spite of the personal connection it took me a good while before I installed a flag holder with which to fly the American flag given to my dad.

Part of the delay was simple procrastination. But, in all honesty a more significant part of the delay is the ambiguous feelings I developed about the flag as a young man coming of age during the Vietnam War. I remember sitting in a college dormitory for that first draft watching as a ball with a number was drawn from a container, a number that would largely determine my fate. A low number and your chances of getting drafted were extremely high. A high number and you could breathe a sigh of relief because the likelihood of going through all the numbers in one year was extremely low, meaning you would escape the draft. I drew a high number. 

Like many college age people, I opposed the war. Those who supported the war often waved the flag proudly and sometimes accompanied the flag with admonitions like “America, love it or leave it”. Loving it, of course, meant loving everything the U.S. did, including the war in Vietnam. A few of those opposing the Vietnam War went so far as to express their opposition by burning the American flag, an act with which I never felt comfortable, but understood.

Recently having traveled to Vietnam and engaging some of that history, my feelings about the war have not changed. My feelings about the flag, however, have. It could be maturing that freed me from seeing the flag through the lens of a narrow patriotism of dominance and superiority. It could be a softening with age that allows me to see the values and ideals the flag represents, even when a honest telling of history reminds us how short we too often have fallen in living out those ideals. It could be that in a nation so fractured by red and blue alliances that a symbol of unity in which red, white and blue come together feels especially needed. It is probably a combination of all three that causes me to unfurl my father’s flag and let it fly beneath our portico.

Thirteen stripes of red and white signifying the founding colonies and we are reminded that ours is a nation with a history. It is a history we must tell with as much truthfulness as we can muster for that is the nature of true patriotism and what the flag represents. The successes and accomplishment in which we take pride, can share space with our failures and struggles because it is in this honest telling of history that we strive to be the “more perfect union” aspirationally given to us in the preamble of the constitution. There can be no striving for a more perfect union without an honest telling of our own story. 

The 50 stars laid out in a sea of blue, challenge us to continue striving for union and mitigate any notion of permanent red/blue divisions so deeply at odds with what our founders dreamed we might become. Union, unity, community don’t just happen by chance. They come from people willing to step up, sacrifice, moving beyond what’s in it for me or differences that divide and instead live into higher ideals like those expressed in our national flag. 

This year the American flag given to my mom in honor of my father’s sacrifice will fly proudly at our home.