Thirty-four years ago in the bright sun outside a small wooden church in rural Georgia I watched as the first black man I ever called my friend was lowered into a sandy grave. The Marine Honor Guard in their dress blues fired three volleys that echoed through the valley and into the hills. I cried. Ted White, Sergeant, U. S. Marine Corps had died in Saigon while serving as a combat photographer. The tri-folded banner that had covered his casket was handed to his mother, by a representative of "a grateful nation."

Two years earlier I was on my stomach in the middle of a street in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic as the Marine platoon I was with exchanged fire with a rebel force. I stood up; eyes wet with fear, and ran forward toward a pile of stones for protection. I almost fell on the small tabletop flag that one of the Marines had mounted on the stone pile.

Twenty-five years ago the North Vietnamese regulars entered and took possession of Saigon, naming it Ho Chi Mihn City. I wept while watching the televised evacuation and the lowering of the stars and stripes.

Twenty years ago living on Incirlik Common Defense Installation, Turkey, where it was illegal for us to fly the flag, I rebelled. On the night the American hostages were released from Iran there were tears of joy. I nailed an American flag to the front of my government quarters. For violating Turkish law I was publicly reprimanded and privately praised for doing what everyone else wished they had the guts to do.

Don't ever call me un-patriotic for I will always be a proud warrior for Democracy.

I get tears in my eyes when I drive past a flagpole and see, what can best be described as a rag, faded, torn and ignored, flying from it. I want to cut it down and give it an honorable retirement. . Those who decorate with the flag or keep it flying well after it should have been replaced are, in my mind, desecrating that national emblem. Those few idiots who burn the flag in protest are actually honoring it by ascribing to it great power.

June 14th is Flag Day. It is my sincere hope that all of those faded and torn flags will be replaced or at least taken down in a show of respect.

On June 14th a flag will be flying from my back-yard flagpole proudly announcing my patriotism and honoring all who served their country. We served under a common oath "to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic."

While I love that flag, my oath is to the Constitution and if I am forced to make a choice it will be on the side of our way of life, the sacred outline of freedom-the Constitution.

I agree with one of the few real American heroes living today, General Colin Powell, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who said:

"We are rightfully outraged when anyone attacks or desecrates our flag. Few Americans do such things, and when they do, they are subject to the rightful condemnation of their fellow citizens. They may be destroying a piece of cloth, but they do no damage to our system of freedom which tolerates such desecration. ... I would not amend that great shield of democracy to hammer a few miscreants. The flag will still be flying proudly long after they have slunk away."

The first amendment gives me the right to state my opinions or display my dissatisfactions and it gives you the absolute right to agree or disagree. You don't have those rights anywhere else on earth. As I fought the enemies of the Constitution in foreign lands I will continue to fight those domestic enemies of the Constitution. If we begin here to erode the rights of some few fools, we begin to erode all of the protections that we enjoy. Someone who burns my flag deserves my anger and my pity. Voltaire said it best,

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

Changing the Constitution would turn idiots into martyrs and only serve to increase the incidence of disrespect. Fly your flag proudly.

Although calling for harsh censure for those "pathetic and insensitive few who would demean and defile our nation's greatest symbol of sacrifice," Glenn firmly believes a flag amendment "would be a hollow victory indeed if we preserved the symbol of our freedoms by chipping away at those fundamental freedoms themselves."