I asked my 14-year-old what he thought would be appropriate to commemorate 9/11, and he said that he would like it if we turned off the TV because it was all too much for him. This was before Laura Bush made the same suggestion, so I would like to endorse what she said. Children don't need to see all that, over and over again. Heck, I am not sure that adults do, either.
Like most people, we started flying the American flag every day after 9/11, but my mother did not have a flag for her apartment and asked us to find her one, and my husband expressed a wish for a Gadsden flag, the yellow one with the rattlesnake, and the motto "Don't tread on me." It took months to find a nice American flag for my mother (amazing how long they were sold out), but we found a Gadsden flag for my husband that weekend. He's been flying it ever since.
He was going to take it down on 9/11, but the next door neighbor started complaining about it, so he's resolved to fly it forever. I was pleased to see that the Navy has started to fly a cousin of the Gadsden flag, the Navy Jack, and my husband says he'll switch from the Gadsden to the Navy Jack after 9/11.
Amazingly, the complaining next door neighbor is career army, who flies his own American flag all the time (it's very faded - shame). He's just very much a conformist, I guess.
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