I’ve seen a lot of American flags strapped to pickups trucks lately. I see them at night, I see them in the rain, I see them touching the lumber and garbage in the back of the trucks; beer cans and coffee cups and bags that I assume are destined for the local landfill, or the side of some back road. I see them flown, on pickup trucks, alongside Confederate flags.

I’ve never been much of a flag waver. I was raised around men who took the flag and what it stood for very seriously. They took patriotism – not nationalism – very seriously. Guys who were in fights like the Battle of the Bulge and Pearl Harbor in WWII – I actually had two uncles at Pearl Harbor – and some who saw some really heavy, terrifying things in Vietnam. Some got medals. Some threw those medals away.

None of these guys ever had anything good to say about war. They did take the flag and what it represented seriously. With one guy, I’d use the word somber. He had a somber and profound respect for the flag. He’d put his up on Memorial Day in May, Flag Day in June, Fourth of July and Veterans Day in November. That was it. It never flew in the rain, or at night. It never touched garbage.

We talked about the flag a few times. He wasn’t some uber patriot. The flag was, to him, a symbol of what he went to war for. Why he laid in a ditch shitting his pants, literally, in fear. The flag represented to him what this country stood for. What this country stood up for. What the guy laying in that cold mud next to him died for.

He didn’t fly it for the government. He didn’t fly it for the president. He didn’t fly it because he was a republican or a democrat. He flew it for an ideal. The flag represented who we were. What we believed in. What he believed in enough to volunteer to go to war. He had a farm deferment. He felt the war was his duty.

I see these kids, the same kids who a few months ago probably flew only Confederate flags, now flying an American flag as some sort ofpolitical statement. MAGA bumper stickers and political signs on these trucks.

This is not Trumps flag, it wasn’t Obama’s flag. These kids have as much right to the flag as I do, I’m just asking for some respect. Some understanding of what it means to some people.

It’s our flag. It’s our heritage. Our ideals. Who we are, who we used to be. It’s a symbol of what we aspire or aspired to be. It’s the flag of nineteen-year-old boys shitting their pants in ditches in Belgium and boys who jumped on grenades in the Shau Valley in South Vietnam.

It is not a political statement. Do not make it one.

I know it’s only a matter of days before I face one of these kids. It will probably be loud and possibly violent. That doesn’t phase me. Certainly won’t be the first time. I’m shocked and confused how deeply this bothers me.

I’m not that guy, but when I see the flag displayed as a symbol of division, by some armchair patriots who have it all wrong I guess I become that guy. I don’t want to be that guy. I’m old and I’m sore and tired, don’t make me be that guy. Please educate yourself.

Stop.