Memorial Day

A little before 6AM I got up and raised the flag over our front yard. It was foggy and the harbor fog horn was blowing. Most Memorial Days past we’ve been out of town so our flag has had to wait for Flag Day or July Fourth to be unfurled. Its supposed to be sunny through the morning and then we’ll get a good chance at thunderstorms.

The paper has Memorial Day stories about the Purple Heart medal and the Langhorst family who lost a son in Iraq. I learned one thing new from the paper. My Grandfather got his purple heart in 1932, years after he was wounded in WWI. The US gave thousands of the medals to World War One’s wounded retroactively when it decided to reintroduce the medal that George Washington designed for the first American War.

The Trib also has pictures of the 96 Minnesotans who have died in Iraq. The proper etiquette for flags on Memorial Day is to begin the day by raising them only to half staff. This is meant as a tribute to the people who have sacrificed, for the nation.

There were other troubling stories in the paper. One covered the Marine unit that apparently killed two dozen Iraqies indescrimately after a marine had been killed in an attack. Another was about how Iraqies have been so numbed by their travails that they seem indifferent to the massacre. Finally there was the story about the tribal chief who stuck his neck out to help Americans fight terrorists and was just gunned down for his troubles. Its a good thing our President has finally shown some humility. I hope he didn’t get a scolding for it from the Vice President.

All I’ll have to dodge today is dust and pine needles. Four days of gardening has slowly transformed the yard for the summer. We have eight tomato plants two eggplants, peppers and rhubarb and what seems like thousands of flowers. I hope its a sunny summer.

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Comments

  1. Hi Harry,

    Why must you wait to put your flag out? Why don’t people fly it everyday?

    I know I did when I had got stolen, and I have not been able to replace it as of yet.

  2. Hi John,

    If all a little kid ever got to eat was desert then a hamburger would be a special treat. Putting out the flag everyday would threaten to make it a mundane experience. It would also mean that the flag would wear out faster which would keep the boy scouts busy burning old ones.

    The primary places where the flag is raised daily are military posts and public buildings. Homeowners are free to do this too but some who do ignore flag etiquette and leave their flags up all night without a light shining on it.

    There are several flag etiquette sites on the web. This is one of them: http://www.usflag.org/flagetiquette.html. Hope you get a new flag soon.

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