90 Seconds Together
During Operation Desert Storm, after Iraq’s Republican Guard had been forced out of Kuwait, my brigade set up a checkpoint on the only highway from Kuwait to Baghdad. We established a medical treatment facility and raised the American flag. It was a signal to the oppressed population of southern Iraq. Dozens of Iraqis came to the facility each day, assured by the flag that they would be safe. I kept that flag, and today it hangs in my office, framed with a photograph of the checkpoint.
The memories of my military career are dotted with other flags. A tiny flag placed on the pile of what remained of the World Trade Center in 2001. The 215,000 flags placed in front of simple white headstones in Arlington National Cemetery each Memorial Day. The flag-draped transfer cases arriving home from Iraq or Afghanistan at Dover Air Force Base
