“To burn or not to burn?” was the question facing the U.S. Senate, and hopefully, will soon face the legislatures of all fifty states. That is,
“Do Americans have the Constitutional right to burn our Star Spangled Banner in protest under the protection of the first amendment of free speech?”
The Congress has voted to protect our symbol of freedom’s glory against such shameful, calloused, and unpatriotic offense, and its passage in the Senate had failed by one vote! I’ve already let the cat out of the bag where I stand on this issue, and I assuredly don’t need any constitutional law debates to foment or check my convictions.
Maybe it’s because I grew up in South Baltimore, where to escape the hot pavements that surrounded our 19th century row houses, the neighborhood kids flocked to the one oasis in our grassless city blocks: Federal Hill Park. This green-hilled, tree-shaded parcel of earth provided an adventurous, safe playground. Here fun meant swinging from its sturdy swings and playing Hide and Seek in its spacious fields and hidden bushes, and riding on cardboard slides down its steep hills in Winter.
But among its best playtime props were the huge black cannons that still stand on its perimeter overlooking the port of Baltimore. Sitting atop one of these authentic cannons from the War of 1812 era, one could easily imagine the harbor below filled with “rockets red glare and bombs bursting in air.” Actually, the grand old navy battleship, The U.S. Constellation, is still berthed in Baltimore’s thriving historic harbor. Everyday she is boarded by tourists and curious school kids who walk across her antique gangplank into America’s naval infancy.
Or maybe it’s my fondness for another national historical site that also serves as a favorite field trip for many Maryland school kids. Just around the water’s bend from Federal Hill lies Fort McHenry, where patriot Francis Scott Key penned his lively poem that became our national anthem, “The Star Spangled Banner.”
I distinctly remember one particular visit to the fort. I was just a teen when I stood at the fort’s farthest edge looking out across the quiet water. It was a foggy day, very heavy and gray, even a little eerie. Transfixed by the moment, I found myself peering through the mist trying to see something. I could imagine how it must have felt to peer through the smoke-filled clouds that accompanied that foggy dawn when Key saw “that our flag was still there!” And what he saw was not just a burned and tattered, beaten flag, but a Star Spangled Banner waving in proud protest “o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.”
It could be this had a greater impact on me because I went to junior high school just a few blocks’ walking distance from Fort McHenry. That would be Francis Scott Key Junior High School, where we were keenly and proudly aware of the significance and legacy of our great namesake.
Surely, if the flag of that fateful morning moved Key to such poetic patriotic inspiration, there must be some today who are still moved to lumpy throats and brimming eyes when they see her comforting unfurled glory in times of national crises.
Baltimore, where I was born and grew up, not only boasts the birthplace of our national anthem, specifically written in homage to our flag, but also the Flag House. Located on a landmark street not far from Baltimore’s exciting harbor, is the place where Betsy Ross lovingly hand sewed our nation’s first beautiful banners.
My high school years were spent at Southern High School where across the street from its main building on Battery Avenue stands Federal Hill Park. (The school has since relocated.) This former childhood playground became a serene lunchtime retreat from our demanding classroom hustle. This historic battle site still affords her visitors the best panoramic view of Baltimore’s attractive waterfront and skyline with Old Glory flying grandly in its modern frame.
Such youthful photos of our local national monuments are safely filed in the memory banks of my mind. They may be a little faded, but not forgotten, and the symbolism of our flag is anchored firmly in them. Perhaps this is why I still get chill bumps and weepy-eyed when I see her proudly raised to the symphony of The Star Spangled Banner behind our nation’s finest athletes standing tall on Olympic podiums. Some shining with tears, some with grins ear-to-ear, yet every face aglow with awe.
How more precious is this sacred flag when placed into the hands of a grieving parent, a weeping widow, or a mournful child whose loved one is lowered into the final rest of American soil, having served his or her country unto death? And all the more, knowing that long ago this soil was watered by the blood of colonial patriots who paid the awful down payment to call her “the land of the free and the home of the brave.”
Nor can I recall that triumphant moment in 200l when firefighters at New York’s Ground Zero defiantly raised our flag above the smoldering wreckage and not feel the pull of my heartstrings that resounds: “God Bless America, land that I love…!” Because this flag is the most recognizable emblem of the land that I love, it is the flag that I love!
So when I see raging men in foreign lands, who revile America by gleefully burning our flag in their streets, a flash of anger shoots through my indignant soul. Even so, I have come to expect such evil from sworn enemies who hate us, because they are somehow threatened by the freedom we enjoy. But here? At home? On blood-bought American soil? Where thousands of our finest protectors are buried in her loving bosom in defense of this great “land of the free”?
To those Americans who maintain their right to desecrate our flag in the name of “free speech”, I offer a more meaningful sacrifice: Why not open your wallets and purses and divest yourselves of the greenbacks that bear the likenesses of our founding fathers who faithfully crafted these documents of liberty? This would certainly be a persuasive protest!
Come to think of it, I cannot recall a single incident when American dollars were burned in the streets of foreign protestors and stamped under foot as a great evil to be renounced. They may hate our guts, but they love our money! And here at home, I’m not sure, but isn’t it illegal to burn our money?
It is high time to give the same protection and distinct honor to our priceless “Red, White & Blue”!
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