On a Day
This morning when I finished up my workout at the local YMCA, the snow was softly falling around the American flag in front.
I tried to take a photo on my phone, but it was inadequate for the moment.
For once, the flag was not at half mast as it is too far too often — usually for dead children or others slain in mass shootings.
As someone who was raised in a military family (and who served myself for over a decade) seeing our flag sometimes makes me sad. Whether it is on the back of pickups or Jeeps with blue flags or on the houses of NIMBY neighbors proudly upholding the tradition of racial segregation in Baltimore County.
Less than 30 minutes from where we live now, there is a parade field on Edgewood Area of APG. We lived across the street in the Major’s quarters.
It was next to the post chapel. These were houses built in the early 1900s. They had steam heat that hissed and clanged in winter. And probably a lot of lead paint. There was a large parade field where we flew kites and made snow angels, watching the flakes fall down onto our faces in the darkness.
These are fond flag memories.
I remember crackling speakers on parade fields on the Army bases where I grew up, or marched myself during Basic Training or AIT.
That Lee Greenwood song that made me feel something in my Class-A’s back then, but now it just makes me sick.
(He also sells Bibles, I hear.)
There is real patriotism and there is the fake chest thumping sort that could give a damn about the veterans and their service, where the military is a prop for weak men who want to appear strong. Where service is packaged and sold.
(Yes, I’m thinking about the Mission BBQ “Deuce and Half” truck with flags flying that I saw today on York Road. And the fake pre-packaged patriotism when minimum wage workers slop your mac and cheese and brisket on your plate and ask what kind of sauces you want. You see patches on the wall for units you actually served in. No one there has a clue what the 49th “Lone Star” Armored Division or the 90th Army Reserve Command and the “TO” patch.)
On February 5th, I took off work early and attended my first protest outside of the Treasury Department. There was a buzz in the crowd when Senator Warren came up to the podium. I left with the group from Indivisible Baltimore when Jamie Raskin quoted Thomas Paine. I’m still thinking about that.
On a day when I’ve seen members of CISA resign — or be fired.
On a day that I’m hearing about measles outbreaks in Texas, a state I called home. (There is a TB outbreak in the state where I was born.)
On a day when “Phase 1” of cutting the CDC is making the news.
On a day when news we hear is that the sanctions between the U.S. and Russia put in place following Russia’s invasion into Ukraine, may be lifted.
On a day when a sitting American president says he is above the law.
On a day like this, seeing our flag does not make me feel proud.
