By Rich Lowry
Monday, July 15, 2019
The American flag’s place in our culture is beginning to
look less unassailable.
The symbol itself is under attack, as we’ve seen with
Nike dumping a shoe design featuring an early American flag, Megan Rapinoe
defending her national-anthem protests (she says she will never sing the song
again), and protesters storming an ICE facility in Aurora, Colo., and replacing
the U.S. flag with a Mexican flag.
U.S. soccer had a pretty good statement a while back
setting out, in response to Rapinoe, why it has an expectation that players
will stand during the national anthem (which, of course, is all about the
flag):
Representing your country is a
privilege and honor for any player or coach that is associated with U.S.
Soccer’s National Team. Therefore, our national anthem has particular
significance for U.S. Soccer. In front of national and often global audiences,
the playing of our national anthem is an opportunity for our Men’s and Women’s
National Team players and coaches to reflect upon the liberties and freedom we
all appreciate in this country.
(Rapinoe called the sentiment “cowardly.”)
The U.S. soccer statement could have added that men have
fought for the flag, and not just in the sense of fighting under it as members
of the U.S. armed services. Our troops have literally fought for the
flag, for its physical advance and preservation. This is the story of color
sergeants during the Civil War.
Color sergeants carried the flag —typically, both the
U.S. flag and the regimental flag — into battle, and not a weapon. They
depended for protection on the color guard, a small contingent of troops
dedicated to the task. The flag, held aloft and leading the way, was important
as a matter of tactics (to mark the location of the unit in the confusion of
battle), of morale (to provide a rallying point for the troops), and of
devotion and honor (to lose the flag to the enemy was a deep disgrace).
Needless to say, this was hazardous duty that demanded
the utmost bravery and dedication. According to Michael Corcoran in his book on
the flag, For Which It Stands, the 24th Michigan Regiment lost nine
color bearers on the first day of Gettysburg alone.
The commander of the Sixth Wisconsin Infantry Regiment,
Lieutenant Colonel Rufus Dawes described his unit’s charge at Gettysburg:
Any correct picture of this charge
would represent a V-shaped crowd of men with the colors at the advance point,
moving firmly and hurriedly forward, while the whole field behind is streaming
with men who had been shot, and who are struggling to the rear or sinking in
death upon the ground. The only commands I gave, as we advanced, were, “Align
on the colors! Close up on that color! Close up on that color!” The regiment
was being broken up so that this order alone could hold the body together.
Meanwhile the colors were down upon the ground several times, but were raised
at once by the heroes of the color guard. Not one of the guard escaped, every
man being killed or wounded.
Corcoran notes of the inception of the Medal of Honor
during the Civil War: “Nearly one thousand of the medals were awarded and, in a
great many cases, they were bestowed upon men who had carried the Stars and
Stripes into battle or who captured Confederate flags.”
Consider a few examples. There’s John Gregory Bishop
Adams, awarded the Medal of Honor for his conduct with the 19th Massachusetts
Infantry at Fredericksburg. As the citation recounted, he “seized the 2 colors
from the hands of a corporal and a lieutenant as they fell mortally wounded,
and with a color in each hand advanced across the field to a point where the
regiment was reformed on those colors.”
There’s John Gilmore, awarded the Medal of Honor “for
extraordinary heroism on 3 May 1863, while serving with 16th New York Infantry,
in action at Salem Heights, Fredericksburg, Virginia. Major Gilmore seized the
colors of his regiment and gallantly rallied his men under a very severe fire.”
There’s William Carney, the first black serviceman to
perform an act deemed worthy of the Medal of Honor, who saved the flag during
the doomed but valorous assault on Fort Wagner in South Carolina.
Part of the famous Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts Colored
Regiment, the exploits of which were depicted in the movie Glory, Carney
saved the flag when the unit’s flag-bearer was wounded and, despite getting
shot up himself, kept it aloft. He supposedly said when he finally turned the
flag over to his comrades, “Boys, I only did my duty; the old flag never
touched the ground!”
There are countless such stories of men risking
everything, not for the idea of the flag or any abstraction but for the actual
piece of fabric itself.
Ancient history, you say? Regardless, the sacrifice and
blood of these men are inextricably caught up in the meaning and moral status
of the American flag. The historical illiteracy of those who protest it is
perhaps understandable and on some level forgivable; their rank ingratitude and
disrespect are not.
No comments:
Post a Comment