Confederate Flags

Back in the 80's, in final days of the Cold War, I had a friend that was stationed in Germany.  As an Intelligence Officer, it was his duty to know the strengths and capabilities of the East German military.  How would they fight?  What assets do they have available?  How would they be deployed?  How fast could they move?  It was his job to know this; to think like they would think.  To remind him of his mission, he hung an East German flag in his barracks.

One day, during inspection, the First Sergeant told him that his flag was anti-American and he'd have to take it down.  Of course he had to comply, but he asked the First Sergeant to reconsider as it was part of his job to think like an East German.  Was the flag a symbol for East Germans?  Would they die for it?  Did it represent more than a colorful banner?  His arguments fell on deaf ears.  He asked his Platoon Leader, and eventually his Company Commander, but all gave the same answer: "It's anti-American, take it down."

Not one to be easily dissuaded - he was trained to think like his enemy - he tried a new tactic.  He approached his First Sergeant and asked, "Everything that's anti-American needs to be taken down?"

"Yes," was the emphatic reply.

"Okay then," says my friend, "Sergeant Smith across the hall has a Confederate Flag on his wall, that should come down too, right?"

"No, of course not.  Why would it?"

"Well," says my friend, "the Confederate Flag is the flag of people that fought and killed Americans in their efforts to quit the United States.  They were fighting against America in an effort to stop being Americans.  How much more anti-American can you get?"

Caught in the verbal trap, the First Sergeant knew that every American barracks building in Germany - perhaps every American barracks around the world - had a Confederate Flag displayed somewhere.  Removing them all was a fight he couldn't win and if he allowed that show of anti-Americanism, then he'd have to allow my friend to keep his East German flag.  My friend had won.

It feels like it's become an annual thing for someone somewhere fly their Confederate Flag proudly.  There was that public school employee in Oregon; the Georgia State Capital; now a woman in South Carolina (AP News, Sept 2011).  All of them using the same argument: "It's our heritage.  It's part of our family history and it means something to me."

It seems to me that too many people love to espouse anti-American beliefs against freedom and equality at the same time they hide behind those very freedoms.  Is this what has become of Southern Hospitality?  Bite the hand that protects you?  Accept the lemonade as you throw it in your host's face?  Stomp on the peach pie as you ask for another slice?

The Confederate Flag means something to a lot of people: it's a symbol of hatred, bigotry, discrimination, and racism. That flag is as much a symbol of terrorism as anything Bin Laden or the Taliban ever cooked up.  It's a symbol of some people's desire to continue the tenets of slavery.

For all of you that own that flag, by waiving it around, you're announcing to the world your beliefs that being a hate-mongering terrorist right to "heritage" trumps every other American's rights to live free and safe.  I beg you, American's, take down that flag!  For you Terrorists, keep flying it high so we know you for what you are.