Old Offensive Glory
O! say does that star spangled banner yet wave? O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Apparently there are a few folks in Mansfield, Texas that would just as soon it didn’t.
Texas is a place of God and country. It’s the Lone Star State and home of the once, and some would argue, still wild west. Ten gallon hats and snake skin cowboy boots. Rolling plains and rugged prairies. The dessert of the Big Bend and a river named the Rio Grande. Hard work, hard play, hard liquor and slow southern drawls. It’s “Remember the Alamo” and “Everything’s bigger in Texas”. It’s “Hook’em Horns”, the Texas A&M Aggies and high school football under the Friday night lights. And flags, lots and lots of flags. Some are the stars and bars of the confederacy on the rear windows of pickup trucks and some are Lone Star state flags on just about every item imaginable. But a whole bunch are Old Glory, the Stars and Stripes, that star spangled banner, good old red, white and blue American flag.
That’s why this stunning story out of Mansfield, Texas is, quite frankly, one for the books.
Debbie McLucas is a supervisor at the Kindred Hospital in Mansfield, Texas. Debbie is your typical patriotic Texan whose husband and two son’s proudly served in the U.S. military. Her daughter is currently in the military and deployed in Iraq for her second tour of duty as a combat medic. In preparation for Memorial Day, Debbie hung a 3’ X 5’ American flag in the office she shares with three other supervisors. But when Debbie arrived for work on the Friday before Memorial Day she was told by her boss that there had been multiple complaints and that some people found the flag to be “offensive” and therefore it must be removed immediately.
When Debbie got to her office she found the flag had already been taken down and was wrapped around its pole and sitting on the floor. Debbie said “I was speechless….I was told that as long as my flag offended one person, it would be taken down.”
Ms. McLucas explained that it was one of her coworkers, an immigrant from Africa who came to this country 14 years ago, that went to upper management and complained about Debbie’s “offensive” American flag. The hospital took the otiose position of tenebrous political correctness and decided to take it down.
The hospital explained to Debbie that they had a flag flying outside. “I was told, ‘There is a flag hanging out front, everyone can see that one. Is that not enough?’” said McLucas. “No”, she said, “that wasn’t enough”. “It is more than I can even fathom, that you would find the American flag offensive, in America,” McLucas said.
Well, fathomable or not, we live in a time when some folks are just aching for something to offend them. I wonder if it is only by coincidence that this American flag was found offensive at the same time we have a president who refused to wear one on his lapel and a cable news outlet banning the same pins on the lapels of their anchors and reporters.
That aside, Americans have suffered the ravages of political correctness and bowed to the majority of one for too long. In this case the hospital’s spokesperson refused comment and the hospital issued a press release that stated in part “This was an isolated incident between two employees that we are working to resolve amicably”. Amicably? You took the flag down and put it on the floor! Even a second grader knows better than to treat an American flag like that.
The amicability aspect only dawned on these sententious administrators when news of their thoughtless actions and mendacious excuses hit the Texas and national news wires. They now admit it wasn’t multiple complaints by multiple people.
I am almost grateful this incident occurred. Maybe this will be the wakeup call we needed to see just how far we as a country have digressed in order to appease the never-ending thirst for political correctness.
The American flag being designated offensive? Not in my lifetime.
Remember the Alamo.
