Freedom, unity, history – what people see in their flags

The stripes are for the 13 original colonies, and there’s a star for each state. That’s the technical answer, but if you ask people who fly the American flag what it represents, you’ll get answers more intangible, broader, and also more personal.

Silas Mills, who lives in Laconia, said he’s been flying the Star Spangled Banner for as long as he’s owned a home where he could do so.

“Most of my family is military,” he said. He flies the flag out of respect for their service, and because of his pride for his country. “We have a great country. It’s for the people who fought for freedom and our independence,” he said.

In Center Harbor, Marge Newcomb said the flag she flies “represents freedom, the men and women who have fought for our country.” Her husband is an Air Force veteran and her son flew planes for the Navy. “I feel like people do not remember our history. If we don’t, we don’t learn from it,” she said. “The freedoms of this country are amazing – I’m welling up just thinking about it.”

Deb Daddio took a break from stacking bales of hay in 90-degree heat to say why she and her husband have an American flag flying at their home in Gilmanton. It was on the pole when they bought the house, she said, and they were more than happy to keep it up.

“I love my flag,” Daddio said. “When I look at the flag, I think of the veterans who fought and gave us the freedoms we have now. It represents our country, our freedom.”

Svend Filby flies his Old Glory from the back of his 1970s cruiser, “Licence to Chill,” which was docked at the Gilford Yacht Club on Wednesday.

“It represents our great country. I never mind passing along that message to anybody,” Filby said. “We have a few problems in our country, but what country doesn’t? God bless America.”

For others, the flag connects with their personal history. Everett Weeks, an 84-year-old farmer in Belmont, said his flag stands for “Seven-and-a-half years of military obligation.”

Weeks was drafted, and although he could have avoided service, he decided to answer the draft board’s call. “I fought for my country and yours,” he said. “It was the most honorable way out.”

He had some benefits to his service, he added. Weeks got to see the Sistine Chapel while on leave, “That trip would cost you $10,000 today, I got to do it for free,” and said his teeth were bad when he reported for duty. “They knocked my teeth out when I got there. I got false teeth out of it.”

For Elliot Finn, 94, of Meredith, the flag stands for a government that gave him an education and a career.

“Considering I was in the military for 21 years, I am used to flying the flag, and like most veterans, I’m proud of it,” Finn said.

Finn had an unusual military career. He came of age during World War II and his youth was steeped in patriotism. “Everything was oriented around the war,” he said. He would have enlisted once he turned 18, had it not been for a notice his father read in the newspaper. The Army, concerned that its field lieutenants would be cut down in battle, was accepting 17-year-olds for an officer reserve program. It meant that Finn could sign up early and get free college as a bonus. When he was seventeen and one day old, he went to the local Army headquarters just to inquire about the details. He walked out an enlisted young man.

The program was scuttled six months after Finn joined – not as many officers were lost as the Army feared – so Finn went back home to wait for his 18th birthday.

By that time, the war was over in Europe, so Finn’s first job in the Army was as a clerk in a separation center, helping to process all of the soldiers who were returning home. Five years later, when the Korean War broke out, Finn re-enlisted and was assigned to a unit that specialized in refurbishing old Japanese air bases.

After his second enlistment, Finn used the G.I. Bill to get a college degree. He also met his wife at that time, Joyce, with whom he would share 61 years of marriage. He and Joyce settled in Maryland, where he worked for the Social Security Administration. When they retired, they agreed to spend their golden years in New Hampshire.

“It was ingrained in me that this is a wonderful country, we should protect it and honor it,” Finn said. “All my life, I’ve been oriented to honoring the United States and the flag.”

Passing that on to the next generation recently was Joe Kenney, executive councilor. He visited the Holy Trinity School summer camp earlier this week, accepting an invitation to instruct young people on the history and etiquette of the flag.

Americans come from a diversity of cultures, backgrounds and birthplaces, he said, but the flag is one thing they all share: “For me, being a veteran of the Marine Corps for 37 years, both active and reserve, it’s an opportunity to share my Americanism and patriotic feeling of the flag to young people so they can be inspired to go forward with their education and life and to understand that the 50 stars on the flag represent the union, it represents all of us. In good times and bad times, it’s always the American flag that brings us together and reminds us to fight for our freedoms."

Kenney, a resident of Wakefield, noted that the flag can be seen as a symbol of the First Amendment, as the Supreme Court has ruled that it can be used as a tool of demonstration. For new Americans, the flag could represent the American Dream, he said. Abraham Lincoln, Jackie Robinson, Dolly Parton – American history is full of people who started at the most humble of positions and left their marks on history.

For military personnel abroad, Kenney said, the flag reminds them of home, and for the system of values they are fighting to protect: “There are very few things that tie Americans together more so than the American flag. When 9/11 happened, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, at Iwo Jima, it was the American flag that was raised. We’ve always raised the American flag, it represents our values, our people. We are the United States of America. We have our disagreements, we have times when we demonstrate, we express different viewpoints, but we are all Americans, and we are all under that flag.”

To Kenney, the flag “Reminds us of who we are as Americans, and why we celebrate independence from British tyranny… There’s no better day than the Fourth of July to remember who we are as a people and to continue this American experiment so that everyone can participate in it.”