Rally 'Round the Flag

As I travel across the country asking my fellow citizens what it’s like for them to be an American, I am also keenly aware of the ubiquitous presence of our country’s flag and what it purports to represent: one indivisible nation under God, promising all of us liberty and justice.

And while Old Glory, has traditionally been displayed with a measure of observable pride and respect, it seems that now, in this current era of divisive, uncivil rhetoric and a disregard for the beliefs of others, our venerable icon has become the soiled, ragged, and casually neglected symbol of an ailing democracy.

This month I am posting a sampling of damaged American flags as a reminder that on a certain level our America desperately needs repair. Yet I believe we can fix it by attending to the promise of our nation’s motto, e pluribus unum, from many, one. One nation, one people, with a national character molded around our distinct differences.

It was my working class father who taught this to me, so I’m ending the post with a short anecdote about his lesson.

I invite you to leave a comment and let me know what you think.

My father, Harris, was a decorated and wounded infantryman who served in World War II. He was a modest, quiet and thoughtful man who rarely spoke about that experience.

We lived in a Queens, New York housing development of garden apartments built right after the war. In order to live there you had to be a veteran.

I don’t know exactly when my father started flying a modestly-sized flag outside our apartment, but I remember it was sometime during the war in Vietnam because I recall asking him about it when I came home during a college break.

“I hate what’s happening in the country right now,” he told me. “With the riots and the protests and the killing it’s like a country I don’t recognize. I put the flag up to remind myself, and all of us, who we are. We may see things differently, but really we’re just one people. There’s only one flag.”

On June 14^th every year, Flag Day, my dad replaced the old flag with a new one, retiring it to a collection box like the one below. It was his ritual of renewal and his way of remembrance.

All images © Robert Kalman. All Rights Reserved.

What do you believe is the value of remembering the concept of e pluribus unum? How are we as a people capable of repairing what is soiled and tattered? What will each of us commit to doing?

Please contribute your thinking. And thanks!