A FEW THOUGHTS BEFORE THE SUPER BOWL...

Symbols can be objects rich with meaning that signify a message. Our American flag and the anthem symbolize all the lives sacrificed to defend our country. The flag is red, white and blue. White signifies purity and innocence; red signifies valor and bravery (blood); and blue represents vigilance, perseverance, and justice. What's there not to like about these values every American would do well to exhibit?

When players on a football field won’t honor our flag and our anthem, they’re not exercising a right to free speech, no, they’re disrespecting the individuals who fought so they could live a free life. Football players are not heroes when they take from a country without giving it at the very least respect. 

Tell the young widow who receives a folded flag that draped the casket of her young husband on his burial day that our flag and national anthem have no value. Nor did her husband’s life given so football players could run around on a field playing a ball game rather than dodging bullets.

Perhaps fine football players who take a knee $100,000 per game when they dishonor the values of the country they live in. Give this money to surviving spouses and children who sacrificed forever the presence and emotional and financial support of their dead family members.  

Let these football players who want to make political statements about race relations and police behavior give talks to kids in school, community forums, do something proactive that costs them personal energy and time – an appropriate way to exercise their freedom of speech.

Shame on team members who will play side by side with men who are traitors to the value of lives sacrificed for them and their posterity. It should disgust every player to see our flag and anthem mocked.

Shame on the coaches and the franchises who are willing to overlook this gross degradation. Each player who kneels is guilty of degrading these symbols of sacrificed lives.  The souls of the valiant who died for our freedoms cry out: Shame, shame, shame.

While only the first verse of the National Anthem is commonly sung at sports events, there are four verses to our National Anthem. This is the last verse:

O thus be it ever when freemen shall stand

Between their lov’d home and the war’s desolation!

Blest with vict’ry and peace may the heav’n rescued land

Praise the power that hath made and preserv’d 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.

Our Family - Proud to be Americans!

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