I received an email about a ceremony honoring a "hero" who "rescued" an American flag from being burned.
The email came from the veteran's outreach coordinator from my previous employer.
I felt that this was a very odd use of the term "hero". I also felt that the email's author had a very odd concept of free expression. So, I replied in a manner that I thought would point out the contradiction inherent in "defending" freedom by attacking it....
I really was NOT expecting the response I got....
Ok, here is the first email I received:
Vets: With Memorial Day a week away I thought this was appropriate to share.
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By Jim Roark, Los Angeles Herald Examiner via AP
Flag-saving moment still winning salutes
Updated 4/25/2006 2:49 AM ET By Bob Nightengale, USA TODAY
The hand was trembling, the voice was quivering and tears were running down his face.
The World War II soldier, who survived the Pearl Harbor attack, looked Rick Monday in the eyes, slowly raised his right arm, and saluted him.
"Thank you," Monday recalls the soldier telling him last year. "And thank you from all of my shipmates."
Thirty years ago today, Monday became an American hero.
It was the day he saved the American flag.
"It was the greatest heroic act that's ever happened on a baseball field," Hall of Fame manager Tom Lasorda said. "He protected the symbol of everything that we live for. And the symbol that we live in the greatest country in the world."
The Hall of Fame recently voted Monday's act as one of the 100 classic moments in the history of the game. Monday, who spent 19 years in the major leagues and is a Los Angeles Dodgers broadcaster, will be honored tonight with a video tribute at Minute Maid Park in Houston.
They'll replay a grainy videotape that was discovered in 1984 showing two people jumping over the railing in left field and spreading the American flag onto the Dodger Stadium turf. One man dousing the flag with lighter fluid. The other lighting a match. And Monday, playing for the Chicago Cubs, running in from center field, grabbing the flag and carrying it to safety.
< snippage >
"That little piece of cloth represents a lot of rights and freedoms that people have given up their lives to protect."
< snippage >
What happened to the photographer, James Roark, of the now-defunct Los Angeles Herald Examiner, who shot the only photo of the incident? Roark, whose photo was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize (emphasis added -xynz), lost his job, became a night cook in Portland and was beaten and killed outside a restaurant in 1995. He was 49.
And the tattered flag that was soaked with lighter fluid? It's in Monday's possession in a safe-deposit box, surviving the hurricanes near his Vero Beach, Fla., home. He was offered $1 million for the flag several years ago, he said, but rejected the overture.
"The flag is faded, and it's somewhat tattered," Monday said. "It wasn't like it was just bought off the shelf. It wasn't in great shape from the start.
"But the flag is not for sale. What this flag represents, you can't buy."
I responded by writing this email:
We must vigorously defend the freedoms symbolized by that Flag; therefore we must vigorously punish those who would dare to claim that they have the freedom to burn it.....
People should not be free to desecrate Symbols of Freedom.
The response I got was funny, sad and frightening:
thanks, many of us believe and feel the same.
Ok....there was NO way I was going to let it pass...so I've just sent this response:
Right!
Freedom of expression does not mean that you are free to abuse it!
People who burn flags and speak disrespectfully about The President are weakening the country: it's bad for troop morale and it emboldens the Terrorists. Appropriate criticism when it is warranted is one thing, but flagrant disrespect that is damaging to morale in a time of war is something else entirely! Being disrespectful to the President in a manner that damages morale should be outlawed for the EXACT same reason that flag burning should be outlawed: it is a desecration of the very ideals that US soldiers have given their lives for!