Salute the Flag: Paramount Pathway to Prosperity
It is in the American flag and our unwavering respect to it that our hope and future lies. Time and honor can be represented in multifarious ways while significant signals act as bread crumbs to our quickly fleeting past. The American flag and our salute are both a monumental mighty embodiment of America which accompany us daily.
As generations grow more independent from antiquated traditions they inevitably grow more separated and detached from the roots of commencement and the traditions which brought them paradise in the form of the most felicity filled and prosperous nation to ever exist on earth. The constant encouraged nurturing of these traditions, these frameworks which are works of masterpiece sustenance and infinite useful reminders of our deeply woven and embedded patriotism, are crucial in the future generation’s understanding of duty bound patriotism. A goal of mine is to be a beacon of light shinning bright illustrious beams on symbols of our freedom.
It all started so subtly one hundred and nineteen years ago in 1892 when James Upham and Francis Bellamy decided the Pledge of Allegiance should be accompanied by a hand salute. The National Columbian Public School Celebration of Columbus Day was the event that needed a program and Upham and Bellamy had just the thing. They wrote out the pledge for The Youth’s Companion magazine and while verbally reciting it Upham instinctively held out his arm, palm upward, toward an invisible flag he could see so clearly in his mind. By September 8th 1892 part of the official program of the National Columbian Public School Celebration of Columbus Day specified in the instructions that students were to accompany the Pledge of Allegiance with a military salute or your hand over your heart.
Various styles of saluting were used from 1892 until 1935 including a straight armed palm facing down salute. Citizens were beginning to complain in 1935 because of the striking similarity to the most popular hand salute and that of the German “Heil Hitler” salute, arm extended to the flag and the palm facing down. Finally in December 1942 congress officially sanctioned a flag salute, holding your right hand over your heart.
To salute the flag is to recognize with swift acceptance the abundant and extravagant respect for the perfect exemplification of a representation of those who gave the ultimate sacrifice for this country. Gazing upon the stars on the flag I reminisce about those who have been taken to the sky because of what they have done for this country. Every time I see the stripes that represented the original colonies and the blood shed it took to get us here it strips away what is divided in me regarding theUnited States of Americadysfunction and it pieces together all harboring sense of liberty in my soul and unifies me with all those surrounding me in our country.
Unity brought forth by appreciation, appreciation brought forth by gunshots. The terrorism that rattled my body is another form of fear and disruption but not dissimilar to the terrorism that stalks and has rattled this country.
Saluting the flag is something more to me than an empty gesture to whispering ghosts. It is something I do willingly with a voluminous gratitude for being on this earth after being shot in Detroit in 2007, ripped to pieces by bullets and remaining alive still on American soil. When you’re looking at the flag with battle hardened eyes that have looked down upon your own belly only to find blood leaking faster than a rushing rapid out of you, you “get it”. You get that the flag at its minimum represents the colossal struggle for freedom and it gives you a tragic but enduring solid bond between the memories of fallen warriors and yourself.
Profound veneration lies dormant in our hearts like shadows dancing on walls miles away that we can barley see. The passion of patriots who left us should be the spark to our inner fires that should already be burning. Every breath at every sunset and every fresh new day at every sunrise is a reason to salute the flag.
In a world that changes in moments so vigorously and spontaneously, we should seek a familiarity that has been with us since birth. With each salute we make, we are each slowly and progressively pulling our inner swords out of the stone of idealness to create heroes and to create leaders in ourselves.
The flag moves with us in life. Look next time you pass one, see it get caught up in the winds of life just as we are. Strong, steady, and unshakeable it is in our American flag and our devotion to it that our hope and future lies.
Dominic Matich author of Sypheria.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sypheria/239530776070762
Sypheriathebook.com
This is a great story because I’m such a stickler about the flag, and have always been. I’ve always had a flag hung outside the front of my house, and have flags of different size scattered aroung my back yard, fixed to my picnic pavillion, and gazebo. I’m not obsessed about the flag but I enjoy showing it off. I have special American flags that I use for different official holidays and days like Memorial Day when I use a expensive flag that I bought for that one day. I’m always looking for American flags when I go to my estate sales I make it to on the weekends that people have collected themselves. I have a flag that some people ordered from their representative that was one of those that flew on top of the White House. I have a huge American flag that hung outside a post office atop a big flagpole. That one measures 6X9 or bigger, I can’t remember how much it is I forgot but it’s big, it may be 9×12. I bought them from a flea market for $5 dollars, when I had two of them at one time.
I have taught both my kids and their friends who’ve accompanied us the our local Mardi Gras parade’s we have here in the early Spring that comes just before Easter. When the color guard at the front of the parade comes by I hold my right hand over my heart, and I take my hat off in respect. It’s like a sign of reverence towards the flag for all that have given the ultimate sacrifice for our country. Kids these days are embarrassed to do it, but I get them to do it anyway. Even when the military enactment guys come by and have a color guard in front of the group I salute the American flag then to. I love the American flag, and it gives me a good feeling when I see it. I always like seeing mine hanging in front of my house when I come down the street coming home.
I used to hang it out only during holidays, but after 9-11 I hang it out all the time now. I figure if any Muslims drive by my house I want them to see that an American lives there and they had just better keep on going, right on back to where they came from. Kids these days don’t know anything about patriotism nor do they have any teaching about the flag from school, the government run, liberal controled public education system. They aren’t being taught anything about being patriotic in these schools these days, and it’s to the detriment to them as a generation. They don’t have any idea about their own country, nor do they care because they haven’t been taught to care by their parents or the schools. And the real shame is that it’s not being taught to them by their parents at home.
I can remember when we moved into this subdivision that had mostly young people who were mainly under thirty-ish. Out of a 110 houses mine was the only one that had a flag flying in front of it during holidays. I asked around the neighborhood kids and they said they didn’t even own a flag. I can’t understand that. Many years later when we moved into a neighborhood that had many more people who were me and my wife’s age, all had flags hanging out in front of their homes. Gee, I wonder why? You rekond it was a generational thing? I would say so, and it comes from our upbringing, and our schooling. Our parents were all the WWII veterans, and grandparents were WWI veterans so there was all kinds of reasons to be patriotic. American flags hung everywhere back when I was a kid. They hung atop every building downtown, in store windows, and during holidays American flags lined the streets.
If I see one of those car window flags laying in the street or on the curb right of way I will pull over and park somewhere, run over to it and pick it up and take it home. At our Elks Club once a year on Flag Day they have a ceromony where they have the proper set up to burn flags. And if I have any that need to be destroyed I hold onto them until Flag Day and I take they up there and have them burn them the right way. I still believe that if a flag touches the ground it is supposed to be destroyed. The American flag never touches the ground, nor is it bowed to anyone or for anything. That is why we never bow, or “dip” our nations flag during the Olympics. Several nations complained about us not “dipping” our flag during one Olympic ceremony but we just told them that our flag bows to no one! They didn’t like it but there wasn’t anything they could do about it. Damn right! And don’t ever try! God Bless America, and her flag!!
WillofLa: Excellent essay and I couldn’t agree more. Children of today don’t have a clue when it comes to patriotism or respect. When one thinks of all the lives sacrificied to give us what we have today, the meaning of the colors of the flag, to show disrespect to either is disgraceful. That is what happens when irreverant liberals are in charge of public education and parents don’t care enough to pass on the history of the greatest country in the world. We can only hope and pray that there are enough of us left to preserve it for the future. God Bless America and our military.