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This ought to get your blood boiling:
When Ed Jordan hung two flags from his front porch, one for his country and one for the Marine Corps he once served in, he thought no one would take issue with his gesture to honor the troops during the Fourth of July.
He returned home from an errand Monday morning to find the flags burned, their cinders scattered amid his azaleas.
The 70-year-old veteran was shocked when police told him that a flag at another house in his quiet neighborhood just north of Valley View Mall was also incinerated.
“I’d have given them the flags if they wanted them,” he said, spreading a handful of remains out on his coffee table. “But to just burn them – I don’t understand that at all.”
A sooty sliver of red and white was all that remained of the American flag.
Another that had depicted a famous photograph of Marines at Iwo Jima had been reduced to shreds of melted nylon.
Jordan said he enlisted in the Marines out of high school and served as a corporal at Camp Pendleton, Calif., in the 1950s.
“When I was on active duty, the flag always meant something to me,” he said. “I’d always take pride when I saw it flying in civilian areas.”
… “When you damage something that so many have died for, the symbol it represents, that, to me, is intolerable,” he said.
Fortunately, there has since been a huge outpouring of support for him.
Since writing the article, I’ve been contacted by soldiers, civilians, a flag manufacturer and the agent for Kid Rock — all of whom want to help replace the burned flags. An Army veteran offered up an American flag he said had been flown over several camps and bases in Iraq.
… I would like to clarify one thing for those outraged by the vandalism: neither the police nor either victim could say whether the burnings were a political statement, a juvenile prank, or something else entirely.
Regardless the intent behind the flag burnings, the act was reprehensible. I’m glad to see, however, that the community is rallying around him. Vets should know that the majority of good, decent Americans stand behind them.
Hat Tip: Michelle Malkin
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