Letter | Confederate flag, hallowed banner despoiled by cowards, must come down
When I was a boy in the sixth grade, in Myrtle Beach in 1960, on the first day of school a new kid - a Yankee - came to class.
I was angry.
That is, I behaved as though I were angry because other boys strutted around talking big, saying they would “take care” of the “Blue Belly” at first recess. They meant for the new kid to hear the threat and hide out in the bathroom instead of going on the schoolyard when the bell rang.
I talked tough to be part of something bigger than myself because I felt small. To hold the Yankee kid beneath me felt good, felt right, in my homeland. For my generation, the Confederacy still lived.
Being born in South Carolina, where the Civil War began, I was more than proud; it was my obligation at any opportunity to display my linkage with Robert E. Lee, the Stars and Bars, and the Rebel Yell.
I knew little of the “Lost Cause,” except that it was lost, as though it had been stolen, taken away by bullies in blue uniforms. Any suggestion to take down the flag, in those days, would have been met with BB guns and cherry bombs.
I proclaimed that I hated Yankees. I grew up taking pride in the past, bragging I would never let go, standing tall in defeat, ready to rise again, exalting in childish illusions.
Where do you find pride when the world ignores your dignity?
When what you crave is to rise above, a flag can give you something to reach for while ascending the invisible ladder of self-respect. Something like that might have crossed the mind of the spiritual degenerate who shot those nine innocents in Charleston. I don’t know.
It’s incomprehensible how the human animal justifies itself in a moment of such madness. The irony becomes the bizarre effect of those nine bullets as the nation howls for history to somehow disappear.
Down home, the banner of fallen stars and dreams that Appomattox ended is an icon to keep pride alive forever, reminding the profoundly nostalgic that glory has been won through killing.
But all war is epic tragedy. What happens to cause it, and why it shouldn’t be forgotten, is why the flags of the defeated Confederacy should be preserved in golden frames, among antique weapons and uniforms worn by men who seem to have rarely grown taller than modern 12-year-old boys.
I have not outgrown my heritage. Ancestors of mine fought in the war. I feel vain glorious, remembering the afternoon I stood on the field at Gettysburg with a beautiful girl - a direct descendant of Robert E. Lee - and told her the story of Pickett’s Charge. She said the war, and Lee’s part in it, were not discussed at home. The general had lost and her people did not dwell on defeat.
Yet with tears in my eyes and a frog in my throat, I described for that beautiful woman the slaughter and the glory. She thought me charming, and a bit hysterical over something that happened too long ago to much effect the here and now.
She was wrong, but lost causes were not her product. She was a businesswoman, more interested in winners, like South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who, having smartly declared the flag a non-issue before the election, now wisely asserts “take down the flag.”
Politicians naturally choose avenues of attack and retreat according to the tides of battle. The tide has turned.
Now’s the time to take down the flag.
For South Carolina to finally retire the Stars and Bars will be an act of maturity. Many say it's long overdue; others rage that it's never to be forgiven. The flag is not to blame. It does not belong at the center of the tragedy in the Holy City. It got there, and to the State House lawn, because South Carolina, in 1961, took the wrong side again under the banner of state’s rights in another losing fight: segregation.
Whatever moves us toward peace and profit now, South Carolina has a lot of catching up to do. Reconstruction is still underway.
A benediction for the flag should include the grace of Ulysses S. Grant allowing Lee to keep his sword at Appomattox, but that is not to be.
The immortal dignity of the Battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia, a symbol of sacrifice and undefeated spirit, denigrated for decades by skinheads, steel horse Yankees, Klansmen, and all manner of fear mongers, has now been fatally despoiled by a coward, a back-shooter of old people and children.
In the annals of military courage, the Stars and Bars is a hallowed banner.
It should have been retired before it was redesigned as a beach towel.
The writer lives in Myrtle Beach.
This story was originally published July 6, 2015 at 10:43 AM with the headline "Letter | Confederate flag, hallowed banner despoiled by cowards, must come down."