Ran across this yesterday. The description stated that
this was the flag headed for the middle-east.
Posted on 11/27/2001 3:56:44 AM PST by rightwingextremist1776
A US flag, signed by the relatives and friends of victims of terrorist strikes that levelled the World Trade Centre in New York, will soon be flying high at a camp of Marines now in Afghanistan.
Traumatised by the worst terrorist attacks ever perpetrated on US soil, and carried away in a wave of patriotism, Americans have found a means of expression for their pain by flying the flags in the wake of the September 11 attacks that left around 4,300 dead and missing.
The star-spangled banner, which will be sent to Afghanistan on Thursday, was entrusted to the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit by officers of the New York Police Department, New York spokesman for the Marines, Captain Jaret Heil said.
"Some of their people that went down with the building were former Marines," Heil said of the police officers. "They wanted us to have it because the Marines Corps is the first one" into Afghanistan.
"They wanted this flag to be with the people that are paying back for September 11, and that's the Marines Corps," he said.
The US-led war on Afghanistan's Taliban militia was launched in response to their harbouring of Osama bin Laden, the suspected international terrorist believed to have carried out the attacks.
The names of 27 police officers lost in the wreckage of the World Trade Center were the first to be inscribed in black felt pen on the flag, which was tied to a rescue command post at Ground Zero, the site of the flattened twin towers.
As visits were slowly allowed at Ground Zero, the piece of material became an outlet for the grief and rage felt by victims' family members in response to the attacks.
Vincent Danz wrote of his brother, a former Marine dead in the attacks aged 38, "My brother is on the pile."
"For my sons ... they gave their lives doing what they loved - helped others," wrote the mother or father of Joseph Viagiano, a 34-year-old policeman, and John Viagiano, 36, a fire fighter at the scene on the day of the strikes. "God bless them and all their 'brothers.'"
Other messages are more aggressive.
Policeman Bill Dinkelacker wrote: "Those colours don't run! For all the victims of terrorists attacks: give them hell!"
Tom Whalen, another police officer, writes directly to Osama bin Laden. "Benny, may the last breath you take be spent looking at this flag."
The flag is going to a base set up at the weekend by Marines, near an airstrip at Kandahar, the only city in southern Afghanistan still controlled by the Taliban. WTC flag sent to Kandahar
"This flag is going to the guys on the ground. Eventually it's gonna come back: the NYPD wants this flag back, after they're done in Afghanistan," says Heil. "The NYPD want to set it up in some type of memorial."
Another flag sent from the ruins of the World Trade Centre has been flying at the stern of a US warship in the Arabian Gulf.
I believe all US flags are special, not just the one defaced.
Like a velvet painting of the WTC tragedy, or daytime talk TV, many people may be moved to tears, but that doesn't mean it wasn't a tacky implementation of sentiment.
I agree. You don't go messing with Old Glory no matter what the circumstances.
People shouldn't write on their flag. However, people have written on their flags before and will again. Especially battlefield flags.
Tacky?… Probably.
Bad idea?… Maybe.
Travesty? No.
It simply looks like a someone's flawed effort to contribute to the campaign. Most of the people doing the dirty work here and overseas don't need a dry-cleaned artifact behind bulletproof glass in the Smithsonian. They need a more personal symbol with a simple meaning. Something to unite them, on their level, and something that connects them back to people here and connects us to them. Scribbling on any replica would have been just as much a break with the rules and wouldn't have had the same emotional impact.
Like any other imperfect action, if it's generally good and done by people doing their best, I'm not going to get upset or get in their way.
I would much rather have it discussed in a forum like this than to have the first amendment "new and improved" to decide what is and is not defined as desecration v. tackiness.
The sentiments should have been put on a patriotic "WTC flag case" of some kind for travel and display on the ground.
Ran across this yesterday. The description stated that
this was the flag headed for the middle-east.
Beautiful, just beautiful.
The best illustration/editorial cartoon of this whole war.
I understand your sentiment, but completely disagree. The writing on the flag was not intended as a sign of disrespect to the nation, but rather as a show of patriotic solidarity. It seems to me that the current state of affairs-- where the vast majority of Americans still are bursting with patriotic fervor-- is far better than the apathy of a few months ago. Any faux pas committed, whether or not it is in ignorance, isnt that big of a deal.
I was discussing this with my sis, an AF ROTC cadet, and I maintained that all these raggedy flags still waving from peoples cars do not dishonor this country, but instead are a compliment. Did they take down the Star-spangled banner when it was shot up right away? No, the symbolism was greater to have this hole-studded flag waving in the breeze. Ditto for the scrawled messages on the WTC flag.
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