Quote:
Originally Posted by JRutledge
My father is buried in a Veteran Cemetery and I grew up respecting this flag, but I had a mother that was in the Civil Rights Movement where she was in a lawsuit for discrimination when they segregated a school in Florida. So I want this country to uphold the standards they have set.
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JRutledge: You should be very proud of
both of your parents. Very proud. They're both heroes.
During World War II, my Dad, my hero, an Army Staff Sergeant, fought his way from North Africa, across Sicily, and up the Apennine Mountains in Italy, over some of Europe's most difficult terrain under some of the worst weather conditions found anywhere during World War II. He was eventually awarded a medal for his heroism in the Battle of Rome (after which he traded his carbine for a typewriter after the Army discovered that he went to business school and could type).
As kids, every national holiday (they weren't always on Mondays back then) my Dad proudly displayed our family's (all three of his bothers served) American Flag, and he made a point of telling my brother and me why he was displaying the flag on that particular special day. He's no longer with us, so I can't be certain, but I'm pretty sure that he didn't risk his life and didn't fight his way across Italy for a piece of red, white, and blue colored cloth, or a poem matched with music from a British song, both that symbolized liberty, freedom, and justice; but rather, for the actual liberty, actual freedom, and actual justice (not just symbols) that we have in this wonderful country.
"With liberty and justice for
all". Remember when we all recited that at the beginning of school every day? Did we mean it?