One Memorial Day years ago, my very young son and I were standing on a street corner on the Upper West Side. It was cool for the end of May. I think I was wearing a sweater. Broadway was closed and men in uniform carrying flags were marching down the street.
One of those uniformed men was a friend of ours from the neighborhood. He called out to my son, and just like that, carried him off on his shoulders with a band of brothers who were Green Berets in Viet Nam. One minute he was standing next to me, the next he was waving his little downy six year old arm in the air, brandishing an American flag.
Later when I collected him at the War Memorial on Riverside Drive, I asked him about the experience. He told me about an old geezer who kept warning him, “Don’t let the flag touch the ground, son.” The flag was heavy and my son was worried he would drop it.
I think I might have explained to him what it means when a flag touches the ground.
My son had that flag for a long time. First it was crammed into one of the slats of his headboard, his proudest possession. Then it hung from the wall. Then, it was in his closet. It was still somewhere around when I cleaned out his room after he left home and we moved house.
Last summer, I thought about the flag and those vets marching down the street when my son had an American flag pinned on his lapel. I wondered in a fanciful way if those vets had done a number on his malleable mind way back then? When he was a senior in college, for a while, he was threatening to enlist. I dare say, he didn’t learn about that brand of chauvinism at home. Other forms, but not that one.
Though what does anyone learn at home? That one is, or isn’t, worthy of love? Is, or isn’t, worthy of attention? Admiration? That one has the right to speak up? To protest? To wear an American flag in the lapel? To be strong enough to face the people who love one first and say they love one best and declare: “I’ll grow up and become a Republican and wear a flag in my lapel and there’s nothing you can do about it! So there!”
Myself, this Memorial Day, I’m planning on re-reading People Peace and Power, written by my friend from Bath, England, the brilliant Diana Francis. Diana, a life long pacifist, is an international figure in conflict resolution. She has gone to jail for her beliefs. I was in jail once briefly so I can say with conviction, I will do almost anything not to repeat that experience. I doubt whether any of my stridently liberal friends who have never been to jail would either.
But you never know.
To quote Diana:
“One of the influences which discourages most people, most of the time from taking any form of social or political action is the culture of domination, which, while it glorifies violence, incorporates the assumption that it is the task of some to rule and others to be ruled.”
Diana also believes:
“The culture that produces militarism and military machines, so often used in ‘defense of democracy’ also produces passive populations who do not participate in their own rule even when the legal space exists for them to do so.”
My son the former republican candidate (who I must declare isn’t in favor of Trump) does believe, however strong countries need strong armies.
My friend, Diana, would say, strong countries need strong citizens who speak up. And strong conflict resolution.
I fear I am one of Diana’s faceless people who for many reasons, doesn’t participate in her own rule.
And, of course, I’m wondering how I can change myself and others before this crucial flag-waving thing coming up in November.
In the meantime, I highly recommend Diana Francis’s three P’s. People Peace and Power available at the usual place and though not a beach book, time well spent on the beach or anywhere else you read it.
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