My Responsibility to America

July, 20th of this year seventeen people were arrested for burning the American flag in a protest. I thought nothing of this until I further researched flag-burnings. To my shock I found that flag-burning is perfectly legal if it is not used to "incite a crowd". Flag-burning: how can this be legal? Why is this legal? The flag that so many look up to, the flag that so many gave their lives for, the flag that represents those that have lived and died for our country, the flag that represents the very freedom they are using to burn a symbol of our nation and the sacrifice of millions before; what has become of the responsibility and duty Americans once had deeply set in their hearts? America has given us so much today and people cast it aside because something in society offended them. What has happened to the respect that the average citizen once had for the flag? How has America come so far that a group of football players can think that it is their duty to disrespect something that symbolizes so much more than America? Why, may I ask you? The answer is that we have not been brought up to remember who has gone before us. We don't remember the toil and hardship of the founding fathers and sacrifices of so many more so that we can have the right to look at that flag and see much more than just a piece of coloured cloth. Men have sacrificed their lives just for that flag... just that flag. Can you think of that? Apparently not many can today, here in America. Today, the average citizen is more interested that he's caught up with the latest episode of The Walking Dead or Game of Thrones. Even just a few generations ago people cared more about that flag than today's average citizen. My father for example is not an extreme, or exaggerated patriot in anyway but he is still deeply connected with his country and respects the sacrifice of those who gave their lives for America. Recently in his studies of historic accounts and biographies, his studies led to that of America's naval military forces. The evening before we had discussed the football players' protest and the conversation remained very subtle, but that day my father came to my mother gripping a book in the air. I will never forget his words, “These men gave their lives for a country they were sure they would not be coming back to, and today men, like these football players, trample what soldiers stand and die for. People today just have no idea how much they’ve been given by men like these.” My father spoke with such emotion that one could not possibly go away from that moment unchanged. It was at that moment I realized the apathy I had been harbouring in my very own heart towards my own country. I saw how much I took for granted. I, a born and bred American, had not tasted the bitterness of a life without my freedoms that so many long for, yet I was careless as to how I even had those freedoms. I began reading about men who fought for America and gave their all. I saw the courage, honour, and duty that these men and women exemplified, and I see, now, my duty and responsibility as an American citizen is to honour and remember the sacrifice through which is memorialized in our American flag by passing down the memory of those before me and their love for this country. I will respect that flag.