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Standing up for Old Glory
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Published: May 14, 2009
On Sunday, May 10, at 9:15 a.m., my wife, daughter, three grandsons, a friend of the family and I arrived at the Wal-Mart in Statesville. After we parked the car and proceeded toward the food entrance, I looked up, as I do whenever I see the American flag. As a Marine veteran and the husband of Army veteran, we take a lot of pride in our flag. To my dismay, I found our flag hanging by one hook upside down.
I went inside and ask the greeter for a manager. She pointed him out, just a few feet away. I approached him and told him that my flag — our flag — was hanging in disarray and needed to be taken down. He replied he would look into it and walked away. He didn't even walk outside with me to see what I was talking about.
At that point, I went outside and waited for one hour; still no one came to our flag's rescue.
I then called the police. When they arrived it had been approximately two hours and nothing had been done for our flag. The officer said there was nothing he could do. I was getting very upset and starting to voice my disgust that nothing was being done for our flag. The police officer then threatened to arrest me. I said, "Please, do."
At this time I called the shift supervisor at the police department. He also said there was nothing they could do about it. Both officers said there are no laws stating how our flag is to be displayed.
At this time I took pictures of how our flag was being displayed and took my camera back in the store to have them developed. The photo center personnel were disturbed by our flag's condition. I went back outside to leave with my pictures and saw the manager out there just looking up at the flag. I gave him my opinion that our flag was being neglected.
When my daughter came to get me and tell me we will handle this the correct way, he made a remark behind my back that had my daughter stating hers. She never yelled or cursed this man; she simply stated how she felt it was poor of our Wal-Mart to show disrespect to our country and flag.
At this time I left for home and still nothing had been done for our flag. Arriving at home, I went on the Web and pulled up the laws stating how our flag is to be displayed. The local police wouldn't enforce it because of it being a federal law.
At this time, I called Wal-Mart corporate offices and informed them of our flag's condition and how the manager wasn't doing anything about it. They said how sorry they were for the whole thing.
About two hours later, a Wal-Mart representative called and said they had taken down our flag.
All this could have been avoided if the proper respect was displayed for our flag by management of Wal-Mart.
How are we to teach our children and grandchildren to respect our flag if a grown man in management will not respect it? I have raised my family to be proud of where they come from and the soldiers that fight every day for our country. Wal-Mart is suppose to support our troops but the Statesville store failed to show its support by neglecting our flag.
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