Spring Break
Reader questions URI's respect for fallen
Issue date: 9/12/08 Section: Editorial/Opinion
To the Cigar,
Ladies and gentlemen, it was once a naval tradition, upon the death of a crewman, to hoist black sails as a gesture of mourning; later on, it being markedly burdensome to store a great section of cloth for use in only infrequent circumstances, and this tradition was modified to the running of a black flag up the mast.
But whether the flag or the sail was black was not the issue: it was the sorrowful symbolism tied to the gesture that was important.
And so it came to be that we fly our flags at half-mast in honor of our fallen comrades. This is, of course, neither a newly conceived notion nor a distinctly American one: the first recorded instance of diminishing the flag as a sign of mourning occurred in 1612, during an expedition in search of the North-West Passage.
The Master of the ship "Heart's Ease," Mr. Hall, was at one point murdered by some Eskimos, and when the ship rejoined its consort, the "Patience," the flag was flown over the stern in remembrance. At sea, there were also-as there remain today-other ways of displaying grief, such as sailing with the rigging purposely disheveled, partial hoisting of the sails, trailing lines behind the vessel, and the list goes on and on, I'm sure; however, being landlubbers, we have no rigging, and so default to lowering the flag.
Or, so we ought. By the time you read this, it will already be Sept 12, but now, even as the day is almost spent, when I look out on the Quadrangle and see "Old Glory" waving quietly on high in the intermittent breeze, I am suddenly filled with a sense of abject disgust; for on Sept 11, a national day of mourning, the University of Rhode Island neglected its flag once again. On this day, seven years ago, two thousand seven hundred and fifty-two people of myriad backgrounds and nationalities lost their lives in a blatant and hostile attack on our great nation. Many have called it a tragedy, but this is not so: tragedies are accidents. This was a crime, a slaughter; a cold-blooded, hate-filled assault on America and Americans, and almost 3,000 innocents became victims in the blink of an eye. How do we show our respect for our beloved dead, among which numbers at least one of our very own URI alumni?
Have the horror and sorrow and outrage of that not-so-distant episode been so eclipsed that we no longer even bat an eye?
Why, when we cry out for justice in Darfur, do we not afford our own countrymen this barest shred of decency that they are owed? Why isn't our flag at half-mast?
Ladies and gentlemen, it was once a naval tradition, upon the death of a crewman, to hoist black sails as a gesture of mourning; later on, it being markedly burdensome to store a great section of cloth for use in only infrequent circumstances, and this tradition was modified to the running of a black flag up the mast.
But whether the flag or the sail was black was not the issue: it was the sorrowful symbolism tied to the gesture that was important.
And so it came to be that we fly our flags at half-mast in honor of our fallen comrades. This is, of course, neither a newly conceived notion nor a distinctly American one: the first recorded instance of diminishing the flag as a sign of mourning occurred in 1612, during an expedition in search of the North-West Passage.
The Master of the ship "Heart's Ease," Mr. Hall, was at one point murdered by some Eskimos, and when the ship rejoined its consort, the "Patience," the flag was flown over the stern in remembrance. At sea, there were also-as there remain today-other ways of displaying grief, such as sailing with the rigging purposely disheveled, partial hoisting of the sails, trailing lines behind the vessel, and the list goes on and on, I'm sure; however, being landlubbers, we have no rigging, and so default to lowering the flag.
Or, so we ought. By the time you read this, it will already be Sept 12, but now, even as the day is almost spent, when I look out on the Quadrangle and see "Old Glory" waving quietly on high in the intermittent breeze, I am suddenly filled with a sense of abject disgust; for on Sept 11, a national day of mourning, the University of Rhode Island neglected its flag once again. On this day, seven years ago, two thousand seven hundred and fifty-two people of myriad backgrounds and nationalities lost their lives in a blatant and hostile attack on our great nation. Many have called it a tragedy, but this is not so: tragedies are accidents. This was a crime, a slaughter; a cold-blooded, hate-filled assault on America and Americans, and almost 3,000 innocents became victims in the blink of an eye. How do we show our respect for our beloved dead, among which numbers at least one of our very own URI alumni?
Have the horror and sorrow and outrage of that not-so-distant episode been so eclipsed that we no longer even bat an eye?
Why, when we cry out for justice in Darfur, do we not afford our own countrymen this barest shred of decency that they are owed? Why isn't our flag at half-mast?
