Memorial Day

[Steve Molcsan]

The following message was sent to me this morning by a good friend and retired US Navy Captain. I thought it worth sharing. On this Memorial Day, let us extend our heart-felt Thanks! to our service men and women, past and present!

"Our flag reminds me of a young Navy pilot named Mike Christian. Mike was a POW in a place referred to as the Hanoi Hilton in North Viet Nam. Mike found the remnants of a handkerchief in a gutter that ran under the prison wall. Mike managed to sneak the grimy rag into his cell and began fashioning it into a flag. Over time all the POWs loaned him a little soap, and he spent days cleaning the material. He with the help of the other POWs scrounged and stole bits and pieces of anything that might be used in making his flag. At night, under the mosquito net, Mike worked on the flag. He made red and blue from ground-up roof tiles and tiny amounts of ink and painted the colors into the cloth with watery rice glue. Using thread from his own blanket and a homemade bamboo needle, he sewed in the stars. Early in the morning a few days later, when the guards were not alert, he whispered loudly from the back of his cell, ?Hey gang, look here?. He proudly held up this tattered piece of cloth, waving it as if in a breeze. Using imagination, one could tell it was supposed to be an American flag. When he raised that smudgy fabric, every POW automatically stood straight and saluted, chest puffed out, and more than a few eyes with tears.

Every week, the guards would run the POWs outside and go through their clothing. During one of the shakedowns, they found Mike?s flag. Everyone knew what would happen. That night they came for him. The cell door was opened and Mike was pulled out. One could hear the beginning of the torture before they even had him in the torture cell. He was beaten most of the night. About daylight they pushed what was left of Mike back through his cell door. He was badly broken; even his voice was gone. Within two weeks, despite the danger, Mike scrounged another piece of cloth and began another flag.

The Stars and Stripes, our National symbol, was worth the sacrifice to him.

Now whenever I see a flag, I am reminded of Mike and the morning in a POW camp in North Viet Nam when he waved that tattered emblem of a nation. It was there and then, thousands of miles from home in a lonely prison cell, that he showed us what it is to be truly free."

Freedom Bluff