Old-Fashioned Flag Waving

Kathleen Eagle

 

I love all kinds of music.  Can’t play an instrument, can’t carry a tune, but I move to music.  When I stand for the Star-Spangled Banner, I sing.  I don’t care how flat I am.  And when I hear a bugler play Taps, I tear up automatically.   And nothing moves me more than the heart-throbbing tempo of a  John Philip Sousa march.

 

I’m an Air Force brat, daughter of a WWII veteran, pilot, career soldier.  My father was an Army brat, son of a Spanish American War veteran, horse cavalry, career soldier.  I grew up watching parades on patriotic holidays.  And not the float kind of parade—the men in uniform marching in close ranks down the flight line kind of parade.   There was usually a flight formation overhead—sometimes they’d break the sound barrier and we’d cheer—and an array of shiny planes on the ground.  Oh, the high-flying flags and the crisp salutes and the brass in the band and on the shoulders, all glinting in the summer sun.  That was the Fourth of my childhood.  Here’s a picture of one of those parades, taken at Mountain Home Air Force Base in the 50’s.  I can still point Daddy out in this picture.

I came to revere another kind of patriotic celebration when I met and married my Lakota husband.  Fourth of July is a big celebration in Indian Country, where I discovered more military veterans per capita than anywhere I’d ever lived off base.  In the Dakotas, Fourth of July means fireworks, just like it does everywhere, but there you must have a rodeo and probably a float parade, and if you’re lucky, a powwow.  There will be dancing to the beat of a different drum, the rhythm just as compelling as Sousa’s, who would, I believe, be deeply stirred by a Lakota Honor Song.  There will be a feed—tables laden with frybread with fruit wojapi for dipping and soup and meat, lots of meat—and everyone will be fed, starting with the elders.  I have always found the Grand Entry to be breathtaking.  Colorful costumes, yes, but for this military brat, the color guard that leads the way is as patriotic a sight as any I’ve witnessed.  Every American Indian community, no matter how tiny, has its VFW.  They are present at every celebration, every parade, every holiday gathering, every veteran’s funeral.

 

The Star-Spangled Banner makes my throat tingle.  The Lakota Flag Song makes my pulse race.  Without a doubt, it’s a grand ol’ flag.

 

Kathleen Eagle is the author of You Never Can Tell published by Bell Bridge Books.