The invitation read:
“Flag Retirement Ceremony. 10am. Bring your old, worn flags and your sense of gratitude.”
Gratitude I had. Several worn flags I had. What I lacked was a sense of how exactly this would go. The words flag retirement ceremony sound official, vaguely military, and not entirely suited for a man like me whose idea of ceremony is remembering to stand up during the National Anthem while balancing a cup of overpriced ballpark beer.
But my wife, ever the optimist, saw it as an opportunity: “it’s service,” she saif. “It’ll be good for the kids,” she said, loading the car with all the enthusiasm of a woman who has wrangled five children into church pews, dentist chairs, and trips to Disney World without losing a single one.
So there we were: me, my wife, and our five children, arriving at a small local park like the opening scene of a patriotic sitcom. The Florida sun was in full, blazing glory, hitting its peak over a row of pines. The local scout troops were already there, my kids now among them, organizing a stack of folded, faded American flags that looked like they’d seen more history than most of the people holding them.
Flag Day gets short shrift in our country. It’s lost in thw shuffle between the end of school and the beginning of summer. The 4th of July gets all the attention with loud fireworks, parades, hot dogs, and the kids arguing over who got to wave the biggest flag at the parade route. Flag Day is different. Quieter. The kind of quiet that makes you nervous at first, until you realize you’re supposed to feel something. Then, you do.
A Vietnam veteran with a silver beard and pressed slacks talked to my kids as we presented our pile of flags for returement. His voice was gravelly but warm.
“These flags have served their purpose,” he said. “They’ve flown over homes, schools, and cemeteries. They’ve seen weddings, funerals, homecomings, and heartbreak.”
I looked down at my kids, standing in a row like Russian nesting dolls. The oldest trued looking stoic. The youngest cartwheeled around like she had discovered a new form of transportation. One of the middle kids mouted the Pledge of Allegiance as it was being recited, the words half-learned, half-invented.
One by one, families stepped forward to deliver their flags. Some were frayed at the edges, others nearly pink from too much Florida sun. Person after person carefully laid each flag onto the fire, where they folded into themselves, flames curling the fabric, their work done, an exhalation after a long shift, the end of watch.
Our turn came. We stepped up together, each holding our flag across our hearts as we had been instructed in accordance with the proper procedures Official ceremony
We placed our flags on the edge of the flame. For a moment, they resisted, like they wanted to cling to existence. Then they surrendered, red, white, and blue curling into orange and black.
There’s something haunting about burning a flag. You’re told all your life to treat it with respect, to never let it touch the ground, to fold it with precision as though your mistakes might dishonor the nation and the sacrifices if thise who gave their all for the freedoms it represents. Now here we were, watching ours go up in smoke, not out of disrespect, but as an act of reverence. An ending done the right way.
The kids stood quietly. Those in scout uniforms saluted. I don’t know what exactly they were feeling. I barely knew what I was feeling. Pride, certainly. Sadness, maybe. Gratitude, definitely.
Summer holidays often trick us into thinking patriotism is fireworks and cookouts, that loving your country means singing along to Lee Greenwood and wearing flag-print board shorts. But standing there, watching our flags retire into flame, I was reminded that it’s also about endings. About change. About remembering that this nation, like the tattered flag I retired, has been through a lot, is going through a lot, and that burning amd retiring a flag properly is not erasing its story but honoring the fact that its story was worth telling in the first place.
In the moments after the ceremony, the kids buzzing again with energy, I glanced at my wife and said, “That was actually kind of beautiful.”
She smiled. “See? I told you it would be good for the kids.”
It was good for me, too.
Maybe this is how we shoukd remember our origins, not just with the noise and the parades, but with the quiet, with the letting go, with the understanding that even in the act of retiring an old flag, we’re recommitting ourselves to the idea that this country, for all its frayed edges and faded colors, is still worth standing up for.
Happy Flag Day.