I support your right to protest, your right to kneel during the National Anthem, and your right to shout whatever you please, but if there’s one thing I will not support, it’s your right to burn the American Flag.

When I was a kid, I always wanted the job of taking the flag down from the flagpole, but I was too small. My grandfather told me that if I tried to carry the four by six-foot flag, it would drag across the ground. “Never let that flag touch the ground!” I grew up remembering this advice every time I got lucky enough to carry the flag. I never let an American flag touch the ground. By the time I was eleven or twelve, I was finally tall enough to catch the flag as my grandfather would pull the rope releasing it into my open arms. Then I was lucky enough to help him fold the flag properly. I’ve never seen someone treat a piece of cloth with so much care; but what do you expect from a veteran?

In 1917, World War I was officially in full swing. By 1918 when the war ended, 116,516 American soldiers had been killed in one year. Over one-hundred American soldiers lost their lives defending the American flag and the country that it represented.

On December 7^th 1941 the Japanese bombed the American fleet in Pearl Harbor. 2,403 Americans died that day. 1,178 were wounded. The United States troops declared war on Japan and entered World War II. Four years later, in 1945, the United States invaded Iwo Jima as part of the strategy to defeat Japan. In the War at Iwo Jima, 26,000 American soldiers lost their lives, yet after all the bullets flying, bomb detonations, and bloodshed spreading ceased, something miraculous happened. Three United States Marines proudly raised the American flag through the ashes of the war that had just occurred and put it high enough for everyone to see that America had prevailed. Through hardship, blood, sweat, tears, and fighting for what they believed in, the Americans in that war had won.

A day that most of the current population can remember where Americans were presented with grave tragedy was none other than September 11^th, 2001. The country was faced with one of, if not the largest, terrorist attack on Americans we had ever seen. On this day, 2,996 people lost their lives. Instead of tearing each other apart as a nation, we came together. We held the ones who wept, aided the injured, supported the nation as a whole, and grieved for those we had lost. Once more, through all the debris, members of the New York City Fire Department proudly raised the American flag. No one disagreed when the flag was raised, as it was a reassurance to all underneath of it that we would once again rise through the ashes and remain standing.

The American flag represents the people who have died to protect this country. The flag represents our triumph and perseverance as a country even in the toughest and most trying times. The flag represents how far we have come as a nation. The flag represents all the people still fighting to protect the rights of the American people. The flag represents the men and women serving in our armed forces to ensure that we are and that we remain a free country.

I understand that many in this country right now feel scared and threatened by the possibility of the removal of rights, but I ask that you turn to a different form of protesting the American government than burning the one symbol that represents us all together as one nation. To burn the American flag is to burn away into nonexistence all the lives that were lost protecting it. As a country, we need to come together instead of tearing each other apart.

Right now, we are stuck in a state of trial. Just as the men and women before us, we can come together as a nation, triumphant, and proud. And together we can proudly fly the American flag as a symbol of unity, instead of one of division.