Our Flag
By Chief Danny Watson, City of Darlington Chief of Police
I was driving through Hendersonville, NC when I saw this huge American Flag flapping in the wind and took a picture of it. I did it not because I have never seen one before, or that it was an oddity to me, but because I was thinking to myself how hard the wind must blow to make this flag furl in the wind.
As strange as this must seem, I also thought to myself how many people exhaling their last breath for this nation would it take to move this mighty flag. The thousands of Marines and Sailors who died on the beaches of Iwo Jima would that be enough to move this flag. How about the tens of thousands of Americans on both sides of the battle at Gettysburg would that be enough to stir this flag? How about the countless other lives lost in World War I in France or in the German Black Forest? How about the thousands who lost their lives whose names appear on the walls of the Vietnam memorial? Would all of the final breaths of those lost among all of the battles Americans have participated in under this banner around the world stir this flag. These are thoughts that crossed my mind quite out of the blue on the day I took this picture.
Yes, I’m patriotic. Yes, I served and had the circumstances been different I might have been one of those who gave their final breath for God and Country. When you hear our National Anthem, does it stir your soul, give you chill bumps down your spine? It still does mine every time I hear it, and that flag furling in the wind did the same thing that day where on a whim I snapped this picture.
It kills my soul to see people talk and wander about when our anthem is being played. It angers me to see posts on Facebook advocating people to burn and step on our banner. The United States is the best place on Earth and I have gladly served her and protected her in the roles in life I have been blessed to have been given. Those of you like me who have proudly served under this banner and will be laid to rest with a flag draped coffin, I salute.
The obvious contempt of those who have never served disturbs me greatly. Athletes, actors, political activists or others who desecrate our flag and our anthem do so to the very thing that gives them the right to act this way. There are lots of things I disagree with in government, in society, and in some of the choices that are made here in our nation. Not one of those decisions has ever made me not want to be proud to be of where I am from. I love my Flag, I love my Nation and for them both I will STAND.
Chief Danny Watson MPA FBI NA # 228, Chief of Police for City of Darlington, has been on the Darlington Police Department since 1994 and Chief since 2011.