The Little Flag

by Harvey West, Jr. - August 16th, 2010

This may or may not be of concern to anyone, but something small happened to me today that has affected me in a big way and like I said, it may be insignificant some, but I would like to share the experience.

At about 3:00 this afternoon, I decided to go down to the local truck stop to get cup of coffee. On my way to the store I saw a small American Flag lying in the middle of the road. I pulled over into the center turn lane and proceeded to retrieve the flag of my country. I had to wait for traffic to pass before I could step out into the travel lane to retrieve it. I waited and I waited and I waited for traffic to pass.

I counted 40 cars, trucks, and eighteen wheelers pass by and not one of them made any attempt to stop, slow down of even move over into the other travel lane so I could retrieve our little flag. About a dozen vehicles or so even ran the flag over. One driver did make an attempt to straddle the little flag so as to not run his tires across it.
Eventually, I did manage to walk out into the travel lane and pick up our little 11” x 16’’ flag from the pavement.

I don’t know how long the little flag was there in the middle of the road. I do know that it wasn’t there 2 hours before when I returned from lunch. I do know that not 1 person in 40 made any attempt to assist in saving our flag from such a disgraceful position. Not 1 person in 40 cared enough to show any respect the our Nations most cherished symbol.

What have we become in this country. I forefathers gave their lives for that flag and we leave it lying in the road like road kill. Our Nation’s flag has been a symbol of hope for so many people, both here and abroad, but today on a little stretch of US Hwy 64 just west of Plymouth NC our flag was, for some people, trash in the road way.

As we repeatedly see people in all places of the world, including right here in America, burn, stomp, mutilate and deface our flag, it slowly loses its prestige and respect even in the mind of patriots. That is sad. Thanks Harvey. I appreciate what you did and what you wrote.