“A Place to Remember . . .”

Photo Credit, Bergeron Images

The title of this post appears as the heading on a plaque affixed to a steel beam recovered after the World Trade Towers came crashing down fifteen years ago in New York City . . .

. . . “A tribute to life, lives lost and lives changed forever, September 11, 2001” is the accompanying sentiment. 

 

It is a day of infamy forever burnished into the American consciousness by a covert attack from a band of hate-filled Jihadists emanating in the Middle East.

This memorial stands in Dunham Park, in the Liberty Corner Section of Basking Ridge, New Jersey.

Standing on that venerable, memory-filled steel beam are two American flags below which rests a fresh bouquet of flowers. 

 

Both were placed on the beam in memory of the innocent victims from this area of New Jersey who perished in that disgraceful attack.

The American flag is not merely a trivial symbol.  It encompasses the entirety of the memories of our Republic, from its very foundation to this day.  Some of those memories are of false starts and mistakes made. 

 

But, on the whole, they symbolize the upward trend of the American experiment, perhaps the finest movement towards self-governance that this planet has ever been graced to witness.

The American flag represents the memories of hundreds of thousands of men and women who preceded us, those who fought and died to defend those freedoms, as well as elected officials and other leaders who struggled for progressive laws throughout the centuries since our founding.

  

Today, are those who “sit out” honoring the flag or who “take a knee” in protest at public ceremonies or prior to sporting events short on the memory that they stand upon the shoulders of people far greater than they?

Americans who would dishonor the American flag because of their personal or collective grievances derive their right to do so from this nation’s founding principles and its progressively enabling legislation.

However, no amount of freedom or legislation is a guarantor of wisdom.  Neither is it a guarantor of gratitude.