HONORING OLD GLORY NOW MORE THAN EVER, WE MUST TREAT FLAG WITH RESPECT.

Byline: Joseph Staub Local View

LAST weekend I committed what some people might think was a crime. My only defense is that I acted out of love of country.

I am a teacher, and last Sunday I accompanied another teacher to her high school here in Southern California to pick up some documents for a project we were working on. As we walked around the campus I noticed that on the flagpole was the most faded and tattered U.S. flag I had ever seen over a public school.

The fly end of the flag was extremely ripped and shredded by the wind; the red and white stripes were faded to dirty orange and gray, and the blue field to almost the color of the smoggy sky above it.

I couldn't stand it. I thought about all the people who must see that flag every day - especially students - and the message such a disgracefully worn flag must send.

I asked my friend to wait a moment, and then I went over, hauled the flag down, folded it carefully, and put it under my arm. My friend was slightly concerned that I was taking school property. I explained that yes, I was, and if any school official or security personnel confronted me I would tell them who I was, where I could be found and why I was taking their flag.

I would also tell them that in its present condition their flag was an insult to all Americans, and I intended to dispose of it according to both law and custom: by burning it in a private ceremony. Let them stop me if they can and prosecute me if they feel they must.

However, even if I were convicted, I would still win. I couldn't let that flag fly a moment longer, not in these times, not with what's happening to my fellow citizens here and abroad.

There are many challenges - some of them bloody - facing us Americans and, regardless of one's political views, the flag is clearly more important than ever in helping keep our country united, strong and free - conditions that are not always easy to have all at once.

Too often, we have forgotten that our flag does not represent a government, but a people. Our government has flags of its own, from the president and Congress down to the Fish and Wildlife Service.

The Stars and Stripes is a people's flag, as it was intended to be when it was adopted 225 years ago today.

Then, as now, this country was facing a bloody struggle. In 1777, the outcome of our bold bid for independence was in serious doubt. Out of a squabbling collection of former colonies, we needed to forge a united nation.

Sailors, being sailors, were the most vocal about the lack of a national flag. Therefore, in the summer of 1777 the Naval Committee of the Continental Congress turned their attention to the matter.

Led by Francis Hopkinson, a young Congressman from New Jersey, the committee fashioned a gorgeous and meaningful flag.

On June 14, they resolved that: ``the flag of the United States (shall) be thirteen stripes alternating red and white, the Union be thirteen stars white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.''

That constellation has more stars in it now, but the flag today is essentially the same.

Perhaps what is most important is what is not on our flag. It bears no device of any political system, party or place; nor that of any religion, race or particular group of people. It depicts no landscape, animal or natural resource; no implement of industry, agriculture or war.

Our flag is spiritually and visually complex, yet it is uncluttered both ideologically and artistically. We are free to infuse our flag with any meaning we want.

Indeed, it will reflect what we are. When we act with honor and wisdom and fortitude, the flag will mean those things. When we act out of fear and hate and ignorance, our flag will mean those, too.

The people of the world are watching us, and our flag; they always have.

During our Civil War, Karl Marx (yes, that Karl Marx) wrote to Abraham Lincoln, saying that ``from the commencement of the titanic American strife the workingmen of Europe felt instinctively that the star-spangled banner carried the destiny of their class.''

Now we are in another titanic strife. In the months following the tragedy in New York we have again turned to our flag as an expression of both collective determination and individual mourning, of both our resolve as a country and our sorrow as a people.

Once again, our flag has helped us make our feelings - our grief and our pride - apparent to the world, and to ourselves.

No enemy, foreign or domestic, can harm the flag we keep in our hearts, just as no law can protect the flag if it is not there.

Nevertheless, any physical flag still has a value, and must be cherished. It was in this spirit I took that school's flag. And tonight I will burn it, as is proper, and think of all the people it represents, past and present, heroes and villains, sung and unsung alike.

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Photo:

The Stars and Stripes, whole and unmarred, flutter in the breeze on Devonshire Street in Chatsworth.

David Sprague/Staff Photographer