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Taking back the flag? by: Carolyn Hileman
Guest Columnist (The Voice of the Common People www.thevoice.ws)
The Land of the Free - A Conservative Politics Web Site

There seems to be a lot of fighting over a symbol of unity, people everywhere are talking about taking the flag back. I have to wonder whom they plan to take it from, could it be the old veteran who fought to preserve our right to fly that flag? Maybe the young mother whom stays at home and can only see anger and hatred when people are talking about her country? Maybe they plan to snatch it from the hand of the little child whose charge it is to raise that flag at their school.

Are they planning on taking that flag out of every yard, off every car and house in America? Do they plan to steal it from the Ironworkers, the firemen, off the barn at the old farm down the road? Will they take it from the soldier who holds it close to remind him of home, or do they plan to try and take the flag that flew over the hole in the Pentagon or at the rubble of the trade centers? Just what flag is it that they plan to take back, and who told them it was theirs in the first place?

That flag that they talk about was first planted in America's soil for all Americans not any one group, for everyone. It was put there for Americans and immigrants as well, for the babies that had no idea what type of sacrifice lay before them and the old that had seen family and friends die for their right to fly that flag. To say that you are going to take back our flag implies that at one time it belonged to you and you just loaned it to the rest of us to look at. I cannot remember ever hearing that the United States flag belonged to the democrats or the republicans, all this time I thought that it belonged to me.

The simple working person whose only way to show solidarity was to fly that flag, or the business man who put everything he had on the line to live the American dream. Or the little children who each morning walk outside, place their hands over their hearts and pledge allegiance to their flag. Just as the brave men who fought for our freedom needed to see our flag flying high during the war, our people had to see that flag flying when the final building came down on 9/11. We needed to see the red white and blue to know in our hearts that we were still truly free.

That flag that you claim belongs to you has overseen all of our lives, it has seen America at her worst and at her best. It carries with it the tears of mothers whose last time to see their children was when that flag was laid on their coffin. It has flown proudly for years despite total solitude, ignored and sometimes burned it never complained. Not one person knew until that fateful day just how much that piece of cloth would mean to us, it was just there.

But when the planes were silenced and the buildings fell, when we could finally breathe again and wiped away our tears, we knew. Suddenly that piece of cloth was a beacon of freedom again and it belonged to every man, woman and child. You can say that you are going to take that flag back if you want, but I can assure you that you will never take it out of our hearts. It is seared into our hearts and minds just as surely as that day in September and we will never turn that over to you. Yell and scream all you want, threaten and malign us. But we know whom that flag belongs to, and we know that it was never intended to divide our country but to unite it .

Shame on you for daring to use that beautiful image of unity to try and divide the country it has served for years to unite. Yes, the flag belongs to you but it belongs to me and everyone else as well and you will never be able to take it from any one of us. You can continue in this direction if you chose, that is up to you. But before you threaten to take our flag back again, you might just want to look around you at all the flags flying across this country and figure out which one of those you feel brave enough to try and take.

Carolyn Hileman's complete works can be read at www.thevoice.ws, The Voice of the Common People. This article is reprinted here with full permission of the author.

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