Posted on 08/06/2009 11:14:41 AM PDT by poetbdk
Does the Confederate Flag offend you? http://www.sodahead.com/question/537677/does-the-confederate-flag-offend-you/ I came across this question asked at SodaHead.com that has produced a lively discussion with over 2500 comments. I thought I would post it here at Free Republic and see if it gets a similiar response.
do you have some sort of motor vehicle on your front lawn that is propped up on cement blocks? have you taken the wheels off your house yet? does your bike have a gun rack? ha! sorry. had to.
How can a flag offend someone? It’s just some material that is used as a symbol.
Never has and never will!
What’s the PURPOSE of your question? So far, I have seen nothing from you to respond to that has anything to do with anything but to provoke people...WTF?
“I’m sorry. My responses were not meant to be rude or provocative. I was trying to make my answers direct and informative so that they wouldn’t cause problems... I didn’t intend for people to think I was being rude to them.”
Not an answer to ... What’s the PURPOSE of your question?
To be more accurate it was a war between the Federal Govenment and the Confederate States. The confederate battle flag was designed as symbol of resistance to tyranny. I wonder why it is this flag of the CSA, there were many others, that is the one that is so vilified. Is is because it is the one that symbolizes resistance to the tyranny of the federal goverment and is still a threat as such today.
No, not in slightest, and I am a Yankee!
This was taken from the 11/3/06 issue of the “Okinawa Marine”, which is published by the Consolidated Public Affairs Office of Marine Corps Base Camp Smedley D. Butler. It was written by Navy Lt. Cmdr. Joe D. Haines.
How the Confederate Stars and Bars Made its Way to Okinawa
Only the Normandy D-Day invasion surpassed Okinawa in its scope, preparation and forces employed. More than 548,000 Americans participated in the Okinawa invasion. American service members were surprised to find virtually no resistance as they stormed the beaches on Easter 1945. They soon discovered that the Japanese Imperial Army
and Navy had literally gone underground having spent a year forcing Okinawan slaves to dig their underground defenses. It required 83 days of combat to defeat the Japanese.
The invasion of Okinawa was by the newly organized American 10th Army. The 10th, commanded by Lt. Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner, was composed of the XXIV Corps, made up of veteran Army units including the 7th, 27th, 77th, and 96th Infantry divisions, and the III Amphibious Corps, with three battle-hardened Marine divisions, the 1st, 2nd, and
6th.
One of the most significant milestones in the Okinawan campaign was the taking of Shuri Castle, the underground headquarters of the Japanese Imperial Army. After two months of fighting the Japanese, the 6th Marines and
the Army’s 7th Division were moving south, nearing Shuri Castle. The 6th Marines were commanded by Maj. Gen. Pedro del Valle. Following a hard fight at Dakeshi Town, del Valle’s Marines engaged in a bloody battle at Wana Draw.
Wana Draw stretched 800 yards and was covered by Japanese guns from its 400-yard entrance to its narrow exit. The exit provided the key to Shuri Castle. The Japanese were holed up in caves the entire length of the gully, and had to be eradicated in man-to-man combat.
While the Marines battled through the mud and blood up the draw, the Army’s 77th Division was approaching Shuri from the east. To the west, the 6th Marines were pushing into the capital city of Naha. Faced with this overwhelming force, Japanese Gen. Ushijima’s army retreated to the south. On May 29, 1945, A Company, Red Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, commanded by Capt. Julius Dusenberg, approached to within 800 yards of Shuri Castle. The castle lay within the zone of the 77th Infantry Division, known as the Statue of Liberty Boys. However, Gen. Ushijima’s rear guard had stalled the 77th’s advance.
Impatient, Maj. Gen. del Valle ordered Capt. Dusenberg to “take that damned place if you can. I’ll make the explanations.”
Dusenberg radioed back, “Will do!”
Dusenberg’s Marines stormed the stone fortress, quickly dispatching a detachment of Japanese soldiers who had remained behind. Once the castle had been taken, Dusenberg took off his helmet and removed a flag he had been carrying for just such a special occasion. He raised the flag at the highest point of the castle and let loose with a rebel yell. The flag waving overhead was not the Stars and Stripes, but the Confederate Stars and Bars. Most of the Marines joined in the yell, but a disapproving New Englander supposedly remarked, “What does he want now? Should we sing ‘Dixie’?”
Maj. Gen. Andrew Bruce, the commanding general of the 77th Division, protested to the 10th Army that the Marines had stolen his prize. But Lt. Gen. Buckner only mildly chided Gen. del Valle, saying, “How can I be sore at him? My father fought under that flag!” Gen. Buckner’s father was the Confederate Gen. Buckner who had surrendered Fort Donelson to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in 1862. The flag flew only two days over Shuri Castle when it was formally raised on May 31, 1945. Dusenberg’s flag was first lowered and presented to Gen. Buckner as a souvenir. Gen. Buckner remarked, “OK! Now, let’s get on with the war!” Tragically, just days before Okinawa fell, Gen. Buckner was killed by an enemy shell on June 18, 1945, on Mezido Ridge while observing a Marine attack.
The confederate flag doesn’t bother me in the slightest. However, I can understand why some people from the south would associate that flag to a time when their ancestors were not exactly livin the good life......
No. And pitbulls are OK too.
It is nice to see that you are open-minded about YOUR beliefs.
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Rap music, Paris Hilton, the poseur in the WH, yeah, all those offend me. But not the Confederate flag.
No but it offends my hypersensitve dim stooge neighbors next door. It faces his house and they can’t help but see it when they spy on me when I am outside.
Throw Away the Scabbard - What if Stonewall Jackson had survived Chancellorsville? Available at Amazon.com.
Speaking as a Yankee from waaay back, with a great...grandfather who had his leg shot off fighting the Rebs at Spotsylvania, no, it does not offend me.
My screen name is a hint about my answer to this question.
Then perhaps you are offended by the American flag. For slaves were bought and sold under that flag long before the Confederate flag.
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