Our flag is at half-mast. Everywhere you turned today, the businesses and buildings that fly our flag have it at half-mast. I remember learning about a flag at half-mast in November of 1963. Our president had been assassinated and our teacher explained what the flag not fully raised meant. I remember seeing it, as I do the ones today, with great sorrow. It meant we were not where we should be; our country had been hit as had been our hearts, and the flag flying at half-mast meant we were in mourning, we were hurting, we were not whole any more.
The flag when fully flown represents the power and majesty of our country at its best; the images of those Marines on Iwo Jima raising the flag, even in the midst of great suffering and setback, showed the promise and the possibility of the United States of America, "one nation under God, indivisible," the "give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send those, the homeless, tempest-tost to me," country where people come because they believe in the American Dream - that which means different things to different people, but the basic underlying hope of living free; and what are we offering? Death. It has come so quickly, to so many, of different colors and diverse creeds, the same colored red blood spilled senselessly on the streets, ripping out the hearts of mothers, wives, children, neighbors and friends. Not a reason to fly Old Glory at full-mast, lower the flag as our hearts and spirits have been. We can only say, help us God, to be comforted and reassured once again that we can be "the land of the free, and the home of the brave."
