Us Flag Retirement Ceremony: Fill & Download for Free

I would hope every American is on the same side as free speech.The only time I've ever burned an American flag was as part of a flag retirement ceremony with the Girl Scouts. (It's one of my troop's favorite parts of Encampment each year.) That's also the only context in which I personally would ever burn the US flag.There are some people, American and foreign, who think burning a US flag is an effective and passionate way to protest the US and/or its policies. I may disagree with their protest and their method, but I support their right to do both.My patriotism and love of this nation don't reside in its symbols, but in its people. (Though that's being put to the test at the moment.)My faith in this country and the ideals it represents is strong enough to withstand an assault on our flag. Isn't yours?

It is pretty high. Looking at the obituaries in Air Force times was always eye opening. Supposedly if you can make it three years you will make it many many more. I once was at a retirement ceremony on a Friday for a General, Monday the flags were at half mast, he had died on Saturday morning. He didn't even get a full 24 hours of retirement.

At 18, I was in Army AIT (Advanced Individual Training) when I got “volunteered” by our training company’s staff for a military funeral guard of honor detail. All veterans are or were entitled to them, and there were tons of retired vets living near my training post.One of these ceremonies - except we were more of an ad hoc and hastily trained funeral detail, and our uniforms weren’t as snazzy:A dramatic part of the ceremony involves the US flag getting folded in a precise way to end in a triangle shape, and the triangular flag then gets presented to the deceased’s widow or other next of kin.My designated part was to be the guy holding one end of the flag while it was getting folded, with the guy at the other end advancing towards me while folding, as I remained stationary and ended up with the triangular flag in my hands. I would then present it to my drill sergeant, who was in charge of the detail, and the drill sergeant would present it to the deceased’s widow.Hiccup for me was that my drill sergeant was a very buxom woman. When she snapped her hands down, palms upwards, elbows bent to form a 90 degree angle between arm and forearm, her breasts violently jumped up, then wobbled and jiggled for a second or two, about a foot or less from my face.Immature, but I was 18, and I thought that was hilarious. There was nothing erotic about it, but I just had serious trouble keeping a straight face every time her breasts bounced like that.She kept berating me for it, and in hindsight I don’t know if she was being coy when asking me why I kept scrunching my face like that, but the trainee-drill sergeant relationship doesn’t lend itself to an honest answer like: “It’s your jumping boobs, Drill Sergeant!”Nonetheless, even though I was clearly struggling to keep a straight face in every practice run, she kept me for that assignment.The unfunny part for me was that I was really worried, and mortified, at the prospect that I would burst out laughing at the actual funeral. In the couple days leading up to the event, I went to sleep and woke up worrying about that, and it gnawed at me throughout the day.As things turned out, I didn’t laugh. One glance at the deceased - a Korean or Vietnam War vet - in his open casket, and the grieving family in the church’s front pews, and the solemnity of the occasion immediately hit, chasing away any frivolity. The thing went without a hitch, and without the slightest facial twitch on my part when the Drill Sergeant’s breasts bounced as I handed her the folded flag.