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The Eagle landed on the moon 40 years ago with much ado... One question has continued to fascinate space buffs - Is the American flagthat was planted near the Eagle by Mr. Armstrong and fellow moonwalker Buzz Aldrin still where they left it four decades ago?

A man with a flag stuck to his forehead waits to catch a glimpse of U.S. President Barack Obama on his first visit to sub-Saharan Africa, in Ghana's capital Accra, July 11, 2009

WAUSAU, Wis. – An American flag flown upside down as a protest in a northern Wisconsin village was seized by police before a Fourth of July parade and the businessman who flew it — an Iraq war veteran — claims the officers trespassed and stole his property. A day after the parade, police returned the flag and the man's protest — over a liquor license — continued. The American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin is considering legal action against the village of Crivitz for violating Vito Congine Jr.'s' First Amendment rights, Executive Director Chris Ahmuty said. "It is not often...

Multi-National Security Transition Command- Iraq J4 observed the July 4th holiday by raising flags to be sent to the United States. U.S. Army Col. Keith Kodalen receives the flag from U.S. Army Sgt. Maj. Rosa Harmon. Photo by Van Williams, Multi-National Security Transition Command – Iraq. BAGHDAD — July fourth, the day of American independence, was celebrated in the International Zone with special flag raising ceremonies by Soldiers with Multi-National Security Transition Command - Iraq (MNSTC-I). The flags, after being raised and flown here, will be sent to servicemembers, family and friends in the United States.U.S. Army Col. Keith Kodalen,...

Something uplifting for you, courtesy of Savannah writer, Carol Megathlin.It's the story of a small US flag, transferred into the hands of a SC soldier deployed to Iraq, and it's return home... with the soldier. Per Carol, now in possession of that flag, it's worn and weary from the experiences... much like that young soldier. But, like that soldier, that flag is a cherished possession. Read, and be of good cheer and pride in America's finest.... our military. On the wall next to my computer hangs a small American flag. It is tattered and dirty, but there is no way...

“And the rocket’s red glare ..... the bombs bursting in air ..... gave proof through the night that our flag was still there. Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave ..... O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?”

War veterans are asking Americans across the country to fly their flags upside down this Fourth of July weekend. They say it’s a sign of distress and a protest against the Veterans Administration. A small group of veterans picketed outside the Canandaigua VA Hospital Wednesday afternoon. They were protesting the closing of VA hospitals across the country. They say those that aren't closing are being sold off or leased to outside interests, depriving veterans the treatment they have earned. Displaying the American flag upside down, however, is considered by some to be disrespectful. “We're not disgracing the flag but telling...

ust as many North Texans are flying U.S. flags in anticipation of the Fourth of July, vandals are torching them in a far North Dallas neighborhood. A far North Dallas man says all that remains of his flags is a pile of charred fabric. A pile of charred fabric is all that remains of the two flags that once flew outside Ed Jordan's house in a quaint cul-de-sac off Spring Valley and Preston roads. "I think this border might have been the American flag," Jordan said as he sifted through the scorched remains. On Friday, he hung a flag honoring...

An outstanding Flag Day rally was held on the steps of the Chester County Courthouse today. About 150 patriots gathered to celebrate the Flag and nation it represents. Thank You Sheepdogs for making this day happen! Special thanks to Rep Curt Schroder, Carolyn "Bunny" Welsh, Chris Hill and West Chester's Mayor - Dick Yoder for taking time out of their hectic schedule to participate in this event. Videos of their speeches are posted below the fold. I've posted a few photos from the event for you to peruse. The complete set of photos can be found on FLICKRUPDATE: The DLN...

Happy Birthday, Old Glory!

And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof thro' the night that our flag was still there. O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

PORT HURON, Mich. (AP) — A brazen squirrel has been grabbing small American flags placed in a cemetery and carrying them up to its nest, which now looks as if it's bedecked in bunting. Every Memorial Day, volunteers place the flags next to the graves of about 965 veterans buried at Mount Hope Cemetery on the city's north side. The flags were undisturbed during a Mass held Monday. The next day, the Times Herald reported, workers at the cemetery about 55 miles northeast of Detroit noticed several wooden staffs were still in the ground, but the flags themselves had been...

PORT HURON, Mich. (May 31) -- Squirrel. Thief. Patriot. A brazen squirrel has been grabbing small American flags placed in a Port Huron, Mich., cemetery and carrying them up to its nest, which now looks as if it's bedecked in bunting.

What's offensive about the American flag? Some people don't like it but I'm not like that. It reminds me of the tens of thousands of people who have died so I can be free. If you live in the U.S. and display an American flag at your home or in your personal work space no one should tell you to take it down. Who would do that anyway? It would be shameful.According to FoxNews, Kindred Hospital - Mansfield, TX would. A woman with her daughter deployed in Iraq was told to remove the American flag from her area because it...

QUINCY — For the fourth time in nine months, the gay pride flag flying outside the Church of the Presidents has been vandalized. The flag was stolen last August, and again last September. Two months later it was burned, and this week it was stolen yet again. The pastor, the Rev. Sheldon Bennett, said the rainbow flag was taken sometime Monday night, after the church office closed. The flag flies outside the Parish Hall entrance to the church on Washington Street in Quincy Center. It’s a symbol of the congregation’s support for equal rights for gays, lesbian, bisexuals and transgendered...

Debbie McLucas comes from a patriotic family – her husband and both of her sons served in the U.S. military, and her daughter is currently deployed to Iraq on her second tour of duty as a combat medic.

Imagine being told the flag you put up on your office wall to honor your veteran family members was removed because it "offended" a co-worker... Yeah, it happened

"When McLucas came to work Friday, her boss told her another supervisor had found her flag offensive. "I was just totally speechless. I was like, 'You're kidding me,'" McLucas said." (snip) "Wednesday morning, however, our story received nationwide attention. We have received hundreds of emails and comments from people who had something to say about it. Among the supporters was a combat medic in Iraq: Debbie McLucas' daughter, Lillian McLucas Dressig. "My mom is a true hero in my book," she said."

Kindred Hospital and its corporate bosses in Kentucky got a lesson in patriotism Wednesday. After a thorough roasting in the blogosphere, Kindred officials decided to let hospital supervisor Debbie McLucas put an American flag back on her office wall. "We have invited the employee (McLucas) to put the flag back up," Kindred said in a brief press release. McLucas did not return phone calls from The Dallas Morning News on Wednesday but she told her story on KRLD radio’s early-morning talk show. She said her husband spent 24 years in the U.S. Army. One son is an ex-Marine and a...

We’re getting a lot of e-mail on this story, and it’s not hard to see why.  Kindred Hospital in Mansfield, Texas took down an American flag after getting complaints from Debbie McLucas’ co-workers and patients, who thought the display of the flag was offensive.  McLucas, whose daughter is serving in Iraq, wonders whether her daughter has risked her life for nothing: When McLucas came to work Friday, her boss told her another supervisor had found her flag offensive. “I was just totally speechless. I was like, ‘You’re kidding me,’” McLucas said.McLucas’ husband and sons are former military men. Her daughter...

A Texas woman put up an American flag for Memorial Day, and was told to remove it because it was offensive to a coworker. The kicker is the offended employee is not from the United States. I know ... shocker.

Members of the Miami-Dade branch of the NAACP want the Confederate flag banned from the Homestead-Miami Motor Speedway, and they will meet Thursday to decide whether to boycott a NASCAR race slated there for November.

A flag fight is brewing in southern Florida. Members of the Miami-Dade branch of the NAACP want the Confederate flag banned from the Homestead-Miami Motor Speedway, and they will meet Thursday to decide whether to boycott a NASCAR race slated there for November. Debra Toomer, the branch's chairwoman of press and publicity, said a planning session has been scheduled to decide on a course of action regarding the display of the flag at the Nov. 20-22 event, as well as its presence at city-sponsored events like last year's Veterans Day parade. "The concern is there," Toomer said of Confederate flags....

Is it okay to show your patriotism at the office? For one Arlington woman, the answer was "no" after she hung an American flag in her office just before the Memorial Day weekend. Debbie McLucas is one of four hospital supervisors at Kindred Hospital in Mansfield. Last week, she hung a three-by-five foot American flag in the office she shares with the other supervisors. When McLucas came to work Friday, her boss told her another supervisor had found her flag offensive. "I was just totally speechless. I was like, 'You're kidding me,'" McLucas said.

[Click to zoom.] Click to enlarge CBS 1 of 1 Close numSlides of totalImages Related Slideshows Memorial Day Nation Pauses To Remember Vets America's Soldiers Around The World Is it okay to show your patriotism at the office? For one Arlington woman, the answer was "no" after she hung an American flag in her office just before the Memorial Day weekend. Debbie McLucas is one of four hospital supervisors at Kindred Hospital in Mansfield. Last week, she hung a three-by-five foot American flag in the office she shares with the other supervisors. When McLucas came to work Friday, her boss...

When Shane Amundson's girlfriend gave him a large Confederate flag decal for his pickup truck, he had no idea the image would cause a stir at Lakeville South High School.

Dozens of police stations lowered the Union Flag and replaced it with a gay rights banner to mark a day of action against homophobia. One police chief said the rainbow flag demonstrated his force's support for homosexuals who felt they were victims of prejudice. But critics warned that it was dangerous for forces to show support for particular campaigns. Earlier this year, Britain's most senior policeman ordered his force not to fly any flags in support of individual groups. Sir Paul Stephenson, commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, instructed officers to remove a rainbow flag which had replaced a Union Flag...

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Newt Heisley, the designer of the POW/MIA flag adopted by Congress in 1990 as a symbol of the nation's concern for those missing during military actions in Southeast Asia, died. He was 88. [snip]

An advisory board that addressed racial issues in Homestead and Florida City has been dissolved, leading some residents to question whether the move was an attempt to stop their fight against the Confederate Flag. Led by Homestead Mayor Lynda Bell, all seven members of the Homestead City Council voted on April 20 to shut down the Homestead/Florida City Human Relations Board (HRB).

From the Article: "Our friends at The Patriot Depot just received a call from Rosemarie in Ball, Louisiana alerting Patriot Depot that her brother-in-law was stopped by small town Louisiana police and detained by the roadside for half an hour. A background check was conducted to determine whether he was a member of an "extremist" group. Why? Her brother-in-law (name not disclosed for privacy) had purchased and displayed a conservative "Don't Tread on Me" bumper sticker on his car. The bumper sticker is based on the famous flag designed by American Revolution era general and statesman Christopher Gadsden. The yellow...

An Auburn city councilman has apologized for removing miniature confederate battle flags from the graves of confederate soldiers.

To illustrate our loss of freedom, “liberal” magazines replace raising the flag in victory over tyranny with raising trees, raising IV poles, or raising whatever the latest agenda item may be. But no matter what it is, it takes precedence over freedom. Many “liberals” just don’t get it. “It” is America. If you don’t get a nation − understand it, empathize with it, and love it for what it is, not for what you plan to change it into − how can you hope to lead it in a time of danger?

...After World War II, a new tax put U.S. flagship owners at a competitive disadvantage compared with their foreign-flag competitors, prompting many to ditch Old Glory. But after Navy sharpshooters last month sniped three pirates dead from nearly 100 feet away in the dark on the heaving seas off the coast of Somalia, senators on Thursday asked the captain of the hijacked cargo ship Maersk Alabama whether it wouldn't be a good idea to hoist the Stars and Stripes, you know, just to scare off would-be attackers. Not at all, Captain Richard Phillips told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "You...

A member of Iran's army shoots with his rifle towards the U.S. flag during a war exhibition which is held by the Iranian army to mark the anniversary of Army Day at a military base in central Tehran, April 14, 2009. The Persian script reads, "Down with USA. " REUTERS/Morteza Nikoubazl (IRAN MILITARY ANNIVERSARY)

I am tired of many things going on today, things that seem designed to undermine and destroy our great country. Certainly, we all have the right to express our opinions and, naturally, every American holding any particular ideology will see things that do not correspond to his idea of the “real America” at any given time. It is right and good that we, as citizens, should seek to make the changes we think necessary to make our country strong. We can all agree that people of intelligence and integrity might agree to disagree, but there are some things about a...

London Mayor Boris Johnson is to defy the politically correct brigade by staging a week-long festival in the capital to celebrate St George’s Day, with the red and white cross of England’s patron saint flying proudly from his City Hall offices. The move follows a series of incidents in recent years in which people have been banned from displaying the English flag on the grounds that it is racist and could offend Muslims because of St George’s association with the Crusades.But Mr Johnson believes such arguments are unjustified and plans a series of events around St George’s Day on...

A Muslim fundamentalist leader today told of his vision of Britain under Sharia law.Anjem Choudary said he wanted the “flag of Allah” flying over Downing Street, all women wearing burkas and caning for drunkenness. He is the leader of Ahlus Sunnah wal Jamaah, founded as a successor to the banned fundamentalist sect al-Muhajiroun, which was led by now-exiled preacher Omar Bakri Muhammad. The self-proclaimed Sharia judge admitted his followers had organised protests against British soldiers in Luton this week, waving placards which called them “murderers” for their conduct in Iraq. Mr Choudary, a 41-year-old lawyer, said he was proud to...

A little known odd fact about the history of Old Glory, is her sister, the forgotten Civil Flag of the United States. The existence of the first U.S. civil flag came about in 1767 when members of the "Sons of Liberty" rebelled against the Stamp Act by turning the flag of the British East India Company on its side and then flew it on the "Liberty Tree...

When it comes to the return of fallen heroes, Americans have mixed feelings about the rights of families, patriotism and the demands of the press for "transparency."

Eight years after Hoop Magazine controversially airbrushed one of Iverson's tattoos for its cover shot, Sports Illustrated has airbrushed Indy Racing's biggest star. The victim? Patrick's American Flag tattoo on the small of her back.

Oh, say - can you see? Look. It's President Obama, and he's surrounded by American flags. They're on the dais in star-spangled glory. They're at the town-hall meeting and the news conference, in bold folds of red, white and blue. The White House has rediscovered - or possibly reinvented - the patriotic cachet of Old Glory as a perfect frame for the new president. That's the same president who once would not wear an American flag pin. Things have changed.

I am so grieved by the travesty that occurred this evening in Washington. I am saddenned and extremely concerned for the future of our country and am looking for a way to express it. Whatever happened to the activism of the 80s?! I remember seeing news coverage of groups of people picketing with "throw the bums out" signs, sending tea bags to Washington, the term limits and divided government concepts being debated on talking-heads shows. Are any organizations leading the charge here? I know there are Freeps in Washington, but there has to be something we here in fly-over country...

SIERRA VISTA — American flags, waving all over this vast land of ours, witness many things in their inanimate lifetimes. It stands as the country’s symbol of freedom, of choice, of hope. The Buena High School Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps were at two middle schools on Wednesday morning to teach students what it means to retire Old Glory. “We want to show them what the flag means,” said Lt. Col. John Trombley, senior Army instructor. “When they go to a ball game, and put their hands over their hearts and look at the flag during the national anthem, we...

In his Saturday remarks during his campaign train ride, President-elect Barack Obama issued some soaring rhetoric about the state of the country today. At least the Old Media thought it was soaring rhetoric, anyway. Typically, the media was overawed by his mellifluous tones, of course. But during these remarks in Baltimore Obama made a startling suggestion. He said we need a "new Declaration of Independence." Apparently the original one isn't good enough for the new president, but it also seems a silly rhetorical flourish. After all, what is it that we are declaring independence from this time? Recall that the...

MARYSVILLE, Wash. - At least three students were suspended from Marysville-Pilchuck High School after displaying the Confederate flag. Ray Hauser, spokesperson for the school district, said one incident occurred in October, and another just last week. The students say the flag is a symbol of culture and heritage, but the school district says it's also a symbol of hatred. Hauser said the students are aware of school policy, and when the administration learned of the displays, the students were called in for a discussion and suspensions occurred immediately. Eighteen-year-old Ethian Allen is a senior at the school. Over the past...

This is Peter Lynch, his e-mail begins. The guy who tore down the Mexican flag. That is his identity now, still, more than a year since he tore down — and tearing up — both the fabric of another country and the fabric of his life. It is not the identity he wanted. He never imagined himself the poster boy of both patriotic zeal and xenophobic bile, never imagined his single act would crystallize in him both what he loves about his country and what he hates. You remember this guy. On Sept. 17, 2007, Lynch was fresh from eight...

Motel's choice of flag upsetting to someby Kyle Mooty Madison County Record Editor The owners of a Huntsville motel insist their decision to replace the United States flag with a Confederate flag following Barack Obama's victory last week in the Presidential election had nothing to do with race. In a written statement to The Record, the owners of the Faubus Motel did say that the reason for the change in flags was politically driven. The motel is not associated with its former owner, Alta Faubus, who sold the motel in the 1980's. It has been owned by James and Linda...

<p>ALEXANDRIA, Pa. (AP) - The Rev. George M. Docherty, credited with helping to push Congress to insert the phrase "under God" into the Pledge of Allegiance, has died at 97.</p> <p>Docherty died on Thanksgiving at his home in central Pennsylvania, according to his wife, Sue Docherty.</p>

Vermont is at it again. This time, residents of the Town of Woodbury - approximately 700 adults - are quarreling over 'how and where' students at the local Elementary School should recite the Pledge of Allegiance. First some background, followed by some legal history, en-route to what may be the underlying story. It seems that "No one's sure when daily recitations of the Pledge of Allegiance fell by the wayside" at Woodbury's 19th-century schoolhouse, which has 55 students in four classrooms covering grades K-6. In September, parent Ted Tedesco, took the initiative and "... began circulating petitions calling for its...

For those interested in such things, I drive a taxicab in Vallejo, California. Because I am retired from the Marine Corps and am proud of my service, I fly a 12x18" Marine Corps flag from the cab I drive. Within the last couple of years, the city passed an ordinance regulating cabs. Now, the officer in charge of this (son of the chief) tells me that flying my colors is unacceptable to him. His rationale is that, because we are regulated by the city, we work FOR the city and thus he can do as he likes. Perhaps some comment...