The-Ave.US

Albert Forget on FACEBOOK

Having noted the remarks purporting to report the way veterans feel about burning of the flag, those who have not served – and even some (if not many) who have – should know that for a great many of the leaders who have a couple of enlistments on them or have at least achieved the rank of major/lieutenant commander would protect the flag burner.

What it represents is far more important than the symbol.

The oath of enlistment I took 8 times over the course of 30 years of active duty in the U. S. Navy – service which (among other things) included 2 years in Vietnam, 13 years of sea duty and service on the personal staffs of 9 admirals and 2 captains who later achieved that rank, and to tours of duty as the command master chief petty officer of large commands – was to the Constitution not to any symbol.

The First Amendment protects all speech save that which will (immediately) result in harm as would yelling fire in a crowded auditorium.

If you or I expect to be able to speak freely, we must assure that the voices of those who disagree with us are also protected.

Our Founders told us to be “enlightened” when it comes to our self governance — to know the issues (all sides of them), to know the character of those who would present themselves for election to public office and where they stand on the issues as well as being “enlightened” themselves.

Those learned men even gave us guidelines as to what we should try to achieve and what we should eschew.

They mentioned such things as judicial temperament, honesty, integrity, a fine sense of personal honor, and diplomatic skills among many other attributes we should consider before casting our vote for any candiate.

I stood ready to give my life for the Constitution and for the Country it provides the rule of law for.

Let it be known that I served almost 20 of those years with an undiagnosed birth defect which outright excludes those with it from serving in any of our armed forces.

That condition – bilateral lumbarization – results in the top part of the Sacrum becoming an extra but misshapen lumbar vertebrae.

It is much more debilitating than bone spurs but I served when some cowardly individuals avoided serving only later to wrap themselves in the flag contending to be patriotic

So to those who have not had the experience of going in “Harm’s Way” and even to those who served but one or two enlistments who well remember the “Hoo-Rah” stuff I would suggest you continue to respect the flag and do so in the ways set forth in “The Flag Code” but to even the more love the Constitution and America it stands for.

Lest you want to lose the protections of the Constitution (and the Amendments thereto), the equally valid rights of those with whom you disagree must be zealously protected as well as your’s and mine>

To Roy Hjalseth I would suggest you read “The Federalist Papers that you might know what the Founders recommended to us and we adopted as our rule of in 1789.

If you do you might then come to understand how very much off the mark you and those to whom you apparently listen are from what the ideal(s) “We the People” imposed on ourselves to follow.

I know you would find, were you to do that, that those you champion would be flatly rejected by the Founders.

The man in the White House exhibits few if any of the attributes the Founders suggested we should demand of those we elect to public office.

And that may well be because you know little of our history and thus cannot be so well “enlightened” as all of us are charged to be.

That lack – far more than any flag burning – is a very real threat to American continuing to be a nation under the rule of law.