The end of honoring war, with a flag


It's July of 2021, and I took down my American flag last month, because after giving it some thought, it occurred to me that I was flying it in violation. I've been using it simply as decoration for my house, and once I realized that I took it down.

There have been times when I've flown it correctly, like when I first bought my house, and was proud that I was able to have the American dream. And I also flew it when the new president entered office, and I was just bursting with pride again to be an American. And I'm still proud to be an American, I will still defend your right to fly the flag, but I will no longer honor war.

As someone who has always been interested in history, of course I've studied war. Wars are as important to the human experience as anything else, but celebrating war, and honoring it, is a time that is long since past.

Don't get me wrong, I honor veterans, and people in service, that will never change. And those people who died, and risked their lives, made this country a safe place for me to live in. I'm glad that they were, and are, there, but I wish it wasn't so. I hate war.

I often wondered what I would learn in a long life, and it continues to amaze me. It actually didn't even occur to me until recently that flags are a way of simply saying "us versus them". There's no flag for the world because there's no "them" - we all share the world.

I'm an old graphic designer, and I like flags, and logos. When I lived in Los Angeles I always wore my Dodgers cap, mostly because I like blue. When I've worn it in Phoenix I've seen people act defensive, because they're seeing an opposing flag. I understand. I remember there being parts of LA where people were careful not to wear a certain color, for fear of flying the wrong flag, looking like one of "them".

I'm a citizen of the world, an international man. I feel no need to wave a flag to make people feel as if they're "them", not "us". So the July 4th will not be a reason to bring up old wounds, to remember a war that made people hate, and kill. I will celebrate it with a hotdog, maybe a beer. This is the reason that so many wars were fought, in the hopes that they would end, and humanity would come together.

Peace.

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