Brownwood Flag Burning: What's being written

Letter to the Editor in the Brownwood Bulletin

Flag-burning protest in Brownwood recalled

To the editor:

I read in the papers that the burning of the U.S. flag is under attack by our citizens who do not “support and defend” our constitution. This, of course, includes the two Texas senators. This reminds me of an event that occurred on the sidewalk leading to the front door of the Brown County Courthouse in about 1967, the year of protest. The drafting of young men had more than doubled to supply bodies to send to Vietnam.

One young Brown County man did not want to go. His uncle had been killed in Vietnam two years before. It became fashionable up north to burn the U.S. flag in protest of that war. I was Brown County Attorney at the time.

Sheriff Joe Townsend called me down from my second floor office. I didn’t have an assistant. I walked outside with the sheriff. The sidewalk had a black spot and a few remnants of what Joe said was a U.S. flag. “What to do?” Townsend asked.

Our analysis went something like this. The flag was his, so he didn’t destroy property he did not own. His act criticized the federal government, an act allowed by the Constitution. And my Boy Scout manual taught me that the proper way to dispose of a worn-out U.S. flag was to burn it.

My granddad, George Stuteville, and my namesake, taught me that I should never trust any government to do the right thing because a government of good men would do the right thing half the time and were selfish the rest of the time. Cut the good to a third or less if the men were selfish or captive men. He said that I should criticize the government freely and without restraint. He was born in Coryell County in 1872. He knew more about government than I did, so I believed him.

I held public office for 16 years. A man or woman who yields power is dangerous, no matter how good or decent he is. I didn’t think Vietnam was a proper exercise of our government. I was drafted and sent into the Korean Conflict in 1953, so I knew war.

About the flag burning in 1967, I did nothing.

George A. Day

Colonel JAG USAR (Ret.)

Brownwood

source: http://www.brownwoodbulletin.com/articles/2006/07/06/op_ed/letters%20to%20the%20editor/letter01.txt