GRRRRRollin'
Posted on 08/30/2002 7:45:11 AM PDT by Kennesaw
'Don't Tread On Me' flags set sail on all Navy ships
By Rick Chernitzer, Stars and Stripes Pacific edition, Friday, August 30, 2002
YOKOSUKA NAVAL BASE, Japan — It used to be something the USS Kitty Hawk could call its own.
Traditionally, only the Navy’s oldest actively commissioned ship — currently the Kitty Hawk, now based here — has the honor of flying the “First Navy Jack” flag, a rattlesnake moving across a field of 13 red stripes above the warning “Don’t Tread On Me.”
But Navy Secretary Gordon England’s recent directive authorized all Navy ships to fly it in place of the Union Jack at the front of each vessel, to show the Navy’s solidarity with the war on terrorism.
“The temporary substitution of this Jack represents an historic reminder of the nation’s and Navy’s origin and will to persevere and triumph,” his letter stated.
The flag’s origins are believed to be based on a political cartoon Benjamin Franklin drew to encourage feuding colonies to unite against England.
It was based on a then-popular myth that a rattlesnake, chopped apart, could return to life if the pieces were rejoined. The cartoon showed a rattlesnake cut into sections, each to represent a colony; the caption warned, “Join or die.”
The phrase “Don’t Tread On Me” is credited to a band of newly enlisted Marines in 1775.
These elements, with the 13 red stripes for the colonies, were combined to comprise the first Navy flag. It made its battle debut in Fall 1775, as the Continental Navy prepared to engage the British fleet in the Delaware River.
The Kitty Hawk received its jack from the USS Independence in 1998.
The secretary’s letter states that each ship is to receive four flags. But for now, they’re in such short supply that ships from around the world are calling the Kitty Hawk seeking spares, said Petty Officer 2nd Class Charles Mishoe, a Kitty Hawk signalman.
“We didn’t have any to give them, but we also gave them information on how to get them,” he said. “We didn’t just leave them hanging.”
The Kitty Hawk is allowed to buy the flags from outside sources.
Lt. j.g. Dave Fleming, USS Cushing’s information systems officer, said his ship expects to receive its flags soon.
The jack’s motto, “Don’t Tread On Me,” makes the Navy’s role in the conflict “self-explanatory,” he said. “I think it’s great … so that no one else decides to take action against the United States.”
Several junior enlisted sailors, whose daily duties include raising the First Navy Jack on the ship during morning colors, predicted seeing a waterfront filled with the historic flag will strengthen their resolve.
“It’s kind of cool that it will be on every ship,” said Airman Recruit Kevin Anderson. “It says ‘Don’t Tread On Me,’ and that’s more than a statement.”
But Navy Airman Jane Cruz from the Kitty Hawk said while making the flag a common symbol is a great honor to those who are serving in the Navy, “Can we get another flag to show we’re the oldest ship?”
On September 11, nineteen ARAB-MUSLIMS hijacked four jetliners in my country. They cut the throats of women in front of children and brutally stabbed to death others. They took control of those planes and crashed them into buildings killing thousands of proud fathers, loving sons, wise grandparents, elegant daughters, best friends, favorite coaches, fearless public servants, and children's mothers. So I notice you now. I don't want to be worried. I don't want to be consumed by the same rage and hate and prejudice that has destroyed the soul of these terrorists. But I need your help. As a rational American, trying to protect my country and family in an irrational and unsafe world, I must know how to tell the difference between you, and the Arab/Muslim terrorist. How do I differentiate between the true Arab-Muslim-Americans and the Arab-Muslims in our communities who are attending our schools, enjoying our parks, and living in OUR communities under the protection of OUR constitution, while they plot the next attack that will slaughter those very same good neighbors and children? The events of September 11th changed the answer. It is not my responsibility to determine which of you embraces our great country, with ALL of it's religions, with ALL of it's different citizens, with all of it's faults. It is time for every Arab-Muslim in this country to determine it for me. I want to know, I demand to know, and I have a right to know whether or not you love America. Do you pledge allegiance to it's flag? Do you proudly display in front of your house, or on your car? Do you pray in your many daily prayers that Allah will bless this nation, that He will protect and prosper it?
Or do you pray that Allah with destroy it in one of your "Jihads"? Are you thankful for the freedom that only this nation affords? A freedom that was paid for by the blood of hundreds of thousands of patriots who gave their lives for this country? Are you willing to preserve this freedom by paying the ultimate sacrifice? Do you love America? If this is your commitment, then I need YOU to start letting ME know about it. Your Muslim leaders in this nation should be flooding the media at this time with hard facts on your faith, and what hard actions you are taking as a community and as a religion to protect the United States of America.
Please, no more benign overtures of regret for the death of the innocent because I worry about who you regard as innocent. And no more benign overtures of condemnation for the unprovoked attacks because I worry about what is unprovoked to you. I am not interested in any more sympathy ...I am only interested in action. What will you do for America-our great country-at this time of crisis, at this time of war? I want to see Arab-Muslims waving the AMERICAN flag in the streets. I want to hear you chanting "Allah Bless America". I want to see young Arab-Muslim men enlisting in the military. I want to see a commitment of money, time, and emotion to the victims of this butchering and to this nation as a whole.
The FBI has a list of over 400 people they want to talk to regarding the WTC attack. Many of these people live and socialize in Muslim communities. You know them. You know where they are. Hand them over to us, now! But I have seen little even approaching this sort of action. Instead I have seen an already closed and secretive community close even tighter. You have disappeared from the streets. You have posted armed security guards at your facilities. You have threatened lawsuits. You have screamed for protection from reprisals. The very few Arab-Muslim representatives that HAVE appeared in the media were defensive and equivocating. They seemed more concerned with making sure that the United States prove who was responsible before taking action. They seemed more concerned with protecting their fellow Muslims from violence directed towards them in the United States and abroad than they did with supporting our country and denouncing "leaders" like Khadafi, Hussein, Farrakhan, and Arafat. If the true teachings of Islam proclaim tolerance and peace and love for all people then I want chapter and verse from the Koran and statements from popular Muslim leaders to back it up. What good is it if the teachings in the Koran are good and pure and true when your "leaders" are teaching fanatical interpretations, terrorism, and intolerance. It matters little how good Islam SHOULD BE if large numbers of the world's Muslims interpret the teachings of Mohammed incorrectly and adhere to a degenerative form of the religion. A form that has been demonstrated to us over and over again. A form whose structure is built upon a foundation of violence, death, and suicide. A form whose members are recruited from the prisons around the world. A form whose members defended Johnny Cochran and O. J. Simpson after the latter butchered his wife and murdered an innocent friend. A form whose members (some as young a five years old) are seen day after day, week in and week out, year after year, marching in the streets around the world, burning effigies of our presidents, burning the American flag, shooting weapons into the air. A form whose members convert from a peaceful religion, only to take up arms against the great United States of America, the country of their birth. A form whose rules are so twisted, that their traveling members refuse to show their faces at airport security checkpoints, in the name of Islam.
Do you and your fellow Muslims hate us because our women proudly show their faces in public rather than cover up like a shameful whore? Do you and your fellow Muslims hate us because we drink wine with dinner, or celebrate Christmas? Do you and you fellow Muslims hate us because we have befriended Israel, the ONLY civilized democratic nation in the entire middle-east? And if you and your fellow Muslims hate us, then why in the world are you even here? Are you here to take our money? Are you here to undermine our peace and stability? Are you here to destroy us? If so, I want you to leave. I want you to go back to your desert sandpit where women are treated like rats and dogs. I want you to take your religion, your friends, and your family back to your Islamic extremists, and STAY THERE! We will NEVER give in to your influence, your retarded mentality, your twisted, violent, intolerant religion. We will NEVER allow the attacks of September 11, or any others for that matter, to take away that which is so precious to us: Our rights under the greatest constitution in the world. I want to know where every Arab-Muslim in this country stands and I think it is my right and the right of every true citizen of this country to demand it. A right paid for by the blood of thousands of my brothers and sisters who died protecting the very constitution that is protecting you and your family. I am pleading with you to let me know. I want you here as my brother, my neighbor, my friend, as a fellow American. But there can be no gray areas or ambivalence regarding your allegiance and it is up to YOU, to show ME, where YOU stand." "Until then ... you worry me." ""
GRRRRRollin'
Also, these Frigates are part of the reason for the Battle of Baltimore and the assault on Fort McHenry on 13-14 September, 1814. Normally, when an enemy captures the capitol city of a nation, burns it, and sends its government fleeing into the hinterlands, the war has been lost. Not so with the War of 1812.
The British captured and burned Washington, D.C., but they knew the war was not won until the shipyards of the Chesapeake Bay were captured. Those yards could turn out Frigates, but also the feared Baltimore Clippers. The Clippers were only lightly armed, but they could out-maneuver, out-fight, and outrun anything else on the seas.
To capture the shipyards, they had to capture Baltimore. To do that, they had to subdue Fort McHenry. So, the British fleet and armies turned north from Washington. The defenders knew the same truth about the critical importance of the Chesapeake shipyards to the survival of America. So they prepared for the attack.
Major George Armisted was the commander of Ft. McHenry. He ordered a special flag to be flown there, perhaps the largest flag ever displayed in a battle, so defenders from any point in Baltimore could look to the fort from any distance and see that it still stood, by seeing that great flag.
Francis Scott Key, a Baltimore native, was well aware of the critical nature of the Battle of Baltimore to the survival of the nation. That's why it was not hyperbole when he wrote "The Star-Spangled Banner" after seeing that flag still flying over Ft. McHenry at dawn on 14 September. He knew that the nation had just survived subjugation, again, by Britain. (Key also knew that the British only had the ammunition for about 24 hours of continuous bombardment of the fort. If the attack failed in the first horrendous 24 hours, it could not later succeed.)
Our national anthem is not merely patriotic poetry. It is the true story of an actual battle, and sight of that flag told the victorious end of the story.
Sorry for the length of this, but it is a tale that most people know only small parts of. The whole story is more interesting, and affords more respect to that great flag, which Major Armisted's widow gave to the Smithsonian long afterwards.
Congressman Billybob
Under the US Code, any flag which once was the official flag of the United States can still be flown as its flag. Anyone who wants a standard-sized duplicate of The Star-Spangled Banner can order it in cotton or rayon through the Flag House in Baltimore. (It was my suggestion that a copy of The Star-Spangled Banner be ordered and displayed at the last FreeRepublic Rally on the Mall in Washington.)
Billybob
I saw that and thought....."Hmgh...Pretty cool".
;o)
Whoever is heading up the Navy's Mass Communications Department knows what he/she is doing.
redrock, what did you think of the RFK movie on TNN last week?
That is a cool commercial. This union jack flag is cool, too.
And She does go out to sea, once a year, to maintain that active status. Since her last refit, almost a rebuilding, she is now capable of doing so on her own, that is under sail, not being towed. I had the pleausre of visting her during that refit.
Bump for that. Thank God we still have noisemakers!
YeeeeHHaaaaaah!!
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