When I think of flags, my mind most often goes to the flags they hung in front room windows here during the Second World War. (The war to end all wars..) Families who lost a son or daughter in the war hung a dark blue flag in the window with a single gold star in the center. From what I remember(I was a little kid) a silver star indicated that you'd had a family member wounded in the war. When I walked to school in high school, many homes still had those flags hanging in their front windows, faded from the sun. I remembered those flags in a song that my friend Burl recorded, the Silver Queen.

Several years ago when I was visiting my family, they had a parade in my home town, commemorating the 150th Anniversary of its founding. As the parade wandered through town, I noticed an old pick-up truck coming down the street. It looked like he had just picked up some feed and inadvertently gotten caught up in the parade. But, as the truck approached, I saw a banner on the side of the truck that said "Gold Star Mothers." Sitting on the back of the flat bed truck were six or eight elderly women sitting on folding chairs waving little American flags to the people lining the streets. I felt a stab in my heart and thought of all the young men we'd lost in the war. Burl can remember those times over in England, and I'm sure feels the same poignancy, thinking about the lasting pain of losing a loved one. There was nothing mawkish or jingoistic about those mothers waving their small flags. They still believed that their sons or daughters had died for something, and even though they may not have been able to walk tall themselves, they sure SAT tall in those folding chairs.

Maybe an oxymoron for the thread on that topic should be "Won the War." Some wounds never completely heal.

Jerry