I’ll Be In My Office Feeling Very Sorry For Myself

It wasn’t really big; it was a bit faded, a little dirty from smoke, and the bottom right corner was torn (got caught in a helicopter skid). It had some strange stains and some autographs. My brother gave it to me before I left for Vietnam, “Don’t ever let this down,” he said. He died from Agent Orange complications. It has been to Vietnam, Laos, Haiti, Somalia, Grenada, Sarajevo, Iraq, and Afghanistan. For the last 50 years, it has flown (except when I travel), and it has hung from my house. When my Father died, he demanded to be buried with the flag he carried in WWII.

But somebody stole it. I don’t know why, just grabbed it and took off down the driveway.

I could get another, but this flag has been in some sketchy places and has some war stories. I got in trouble for flying it over the bombed-out hut I lived in. “It will anger the Iraqis,” my commander said. My response: “So, bombing them for the last three weeks, driving tanks through the town, and blowing everything we could find up, that will NOT piss the Iraqis off?”. The flag stayed there.

There are a lot of people nowadays who want to burn or desecrate our flag. I guess they will not understand what it means to some people. There is a special place in hell for this person.

I am old now, a little banged up from some of those places, but I liked to look at it flying free in the breeze. No matter where, it will be my flag.

Fritz Schwartz
Front Royal, VA

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