The World Book Encyclopedia, the World Trade Center and Old Glory

            I became infatuated with flags at an early age, predominately thanks to the salesman who came peddling the World Book Encyclopedia at our home when I was in elementary school.  My parents valued education, and like many suburban families in the 1970s, wanted to ensure their kids would have a better life than they did. The ticket for that was thought to be through education.  So, I found myself often leafing through the pages of one of the randomly chosen 22 volumes of the World Book Encyclopedia my parents had purchased for my brother and me. To my surprise, the world was quite fascinating.

            Volume 7 was for all things that started with “F”, including Flags. I was mesmerized by the pages containing the various colorful flags of the world, and by the time I entered high school I am sure I had most of the flags memorized. It was exciting to think about the culture that created each flag—from the typically tri-color and not very exotic European flags to the unusual sideways twin peaked and oddly shaped flag of Nepal to the stark green-outlined star on the red field of Morocco. Fun with Flags before Sheldon Cooper, if you will.

            My love flags meant that I always knew that when I owned a home it would have to have a flagpole out front.  I typically display the American flag above a carefully selected flag that could be historic, holiday oriented, in honor of my favorite football team, or simply my state flag. Once I had the flag pole in my front yard, I soon realized that observing flag etiquette is not always easy, particularly taking the United States flag down every night if it is not lit and visible. So, I broke down and added lights. 

            Like most Americans, on September 11, 2001, I lowered the American flag outside my home to half-mast. It stayed that way longer than usual, but after about a month it went back up to the top of the flag pole where it belongs. When I was young, the American flag always appeared to be different than the flags of other countries. Some were simple, some a bit hokey, and some beautiful. But the U.S. flag with its purposeful stars and stripes was always more grand, emotionless and enduring. That was true even after 911.

            The flag in my front yard was something I assumed others didn’t notice, but I didn’t care because it was important for me. Then one day I found out that this particular modest flag pole, and this particular flowing stars and stripes had a purpose greater than me. It was there for somebody else.

            My neighbor captained an elite South Florida-based search and rescue team which was assembled the day after 911 for a special mission and securely flown to New York to take part in rescue efforts under the World Trade Center Towers. Their work zone included the subway station and tunnels underneath the towers. He and many other heroes worked endless days and tirelessly. He later told me that they started the first day searching for survivors that they all knew would be there, and ended realizing they would only be able to recover bodies, or in most cases, pieces of bodies. But those are his stories to tell, not mine.

            Three months after 911 when Americans were just starting to recover from the enormous wound inflicted on this country, and commercial aviation was just beginning to restart across our nation’s airports, my neighbor finally came home, unceremoniously and without fanfare or attention. The next day he came down to see me, because he had something important he needed to let me know.

His flight, he said, arrived at Miami International Airport in the middle of night, about 2 a.m. as I recall. There were not many flights yet at this time, and it was the only of the three area airports that had opened. His wife met him at the mostly silent airport and drove them the 2 ½ hours north to our neighborhood and their home. He told me he was so tired, so numb, he could hardly talk on the entire drive home.  He was warn-out and physically exhausted, but more so, he was mentally exhausted, and anguished, and even—in a sense--wounded.  During his mission he and others didn’t have time to think about what they were doing, and it was best not to do so.  He made a point to tell me that the entire time he was working, that all of them were working on the recovery, he didn’t cry, didn’t get emotional. Each day he quietly did his job, ate, slept and started all over the next day. But now he was home and he was empty. He told me that he and his wife drove home from the airport that dark night and when he arrived in our rural neighborhood after the long drive it only got darker. You see, we live on dirt road with no street lights, and the clouds blocked the stars on that night. He leaned close to me and said, “It was pitch black when we turned on our street, and then a light started to come into focus. At first I didn’t know what it was but as we slowly moved forward I tried to see where the light was coming from, and as we got closer…it’s an American flag, your U.S. flag, bathed in light, but surrounded by darkness. We slowed the car down as we got closer, and just then, in that moment, it all came to me, and after months of remaining emotionless, in my car, in front of your house and your American flag, at 4 in the morning when the world slept around us, I broke down, cried, and everything that had happened over the last months just hit me like a brick in that moment. That flag stood there shining out of the darkness. It was beautiful, and I knew you had put that flag there for me, that I needed it to remind me we are bigger than even this horrible, horrible thing.”

Of course there was nothing I could really say, but tears came down my face at that moment. Later he would share pictures and stories. But for this kid who grew up loving flags, I was reminded that things we do, whether we know it or not, impact the people around us. In this case, my flag, lit in the darkness, and inspired by my parents purchase of the World Book Encyclopedia some 26 years beforehand helped an American hero heal his wounds and return, we all hope, to normalcy.

 © 2019 Philip M. DiComo

The Star Spangled Banner

Francis Scott Key

Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
'Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more!
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!