Letter: U.S. flag deserves highest honors
When you attend an event at the Dean Smith Center or Cameron Indoor Stadium, you see hanging from the ceiling, as a place of honor, the jerseys and banners of heroes and championships.
I recently visited the cafeteria of Southeast Middle School and saw flags of many nations hanging in the same manner from the ceiling. I understand the educational experience of students learning about different flags of the world, but what angered me was that the flags of communist Cuba, communist China and communist Vietnam were hanging alongside the flag of the United States of America, in the same position of honor. What was also embarrassing was that a local Bronze Star Vietnam War hero also viewed this display.
As a teenager, I overheard a fellow student make the statement that our flag “means nothing.” It is “just a mere piece of colored cloth.” Well, I attempted to tell that student that our flag does mean something. Flags have meaning. Those communist flags represent tyranny and brutality greater than the modern world has ever known.
Our flag represents the millions of brave American soldiers who pledged their lives and sacred honor fighting against such tyranny as those communist flags represent. Our flag represents freedom and the many past battles where American blood was sacrificed to help keep the world from total slavery, even to this very day.
I hope that Southeast parents take the necessary and appropriate corrective action in this matter.
I hope that the student from my youth is not proved right in that our flag is no more than a “mere piece of colored cloth.”
ó Mac Butner
Salisbury