Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

To the editor:

When you look at our flag you see many things. It is more than a banner or standard representing our nation.

There are three colors of our flag: red, white, and blue. Let’s take a closer look at these colors and what they mean.

• Red is the color of blood. I don’t care what your heritage is, your nationality is or your background is. When you and I bleed, we all bleed red. Try to imagine all of the blood that was shed by our armed forces in all of the wars and conflicts we have known.

When a ragtag group of farmers got together to fight to create this country, their blood they shed was red. When a terrible war tried to split us in half as a nation, men who fought on both sides bled red. When the men and women went to fight for the freedom of the world in Europe and the Pacific their blood was red.

• White is predominantly white with the pupils being colored. Imagine the horrors witnessed by the brave men and women who, even though they faced death, marched forward. I challenge you to go to YouTube or some online source and look at the films of D-Day in 1944. Many of those soldiers involved saw death and destruction, but if you watch the films they went anyway. And in some of the films you can see the wide-eyed looks of those who, not knowing what was coming, still went.

• Blue is for the wounds and bruising our soldiers experienced. Getting wounded in battle must be a terrible thing to undergo. I don’t know; I never was in the military. But I have the utmost respect for those who did. When I see men and women who have life-changing wounds done to them in battle, it just makes me want to shake their hands and thank them.

Sure, America is not perfect. Sure, we as a nation have made some terrible mistakes. But instead of wanting to disrespect the flag and tear us apart, why not we all come together and see if we can find a common ground and then start from there to heal America?

Finally, when you see the flag, think of this. No other nation in the history of the world has offered so many chances to so many people as America has. A house united stands; a divided one falls.

 

Lewis Johnson

Suffolk