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I just watched the move In The Valley of Elah, and at the end of the movie there was this scene that I thought was beautifully symbolic, poetic, and just rung so true to heart for me.
The moive was about this kid Mike who was fighting in Iraq and he was on leave, but when it was time to report back to base he went AWHOL than later it gets discovered that he was killed, and his father who use to be a Sargent in the Millitary Police, is trying to find out what happend to his son, and piece by piece the story starts to unravel, and it gets discovered that his son more or less twisted off becasue of his experinces in the war, and it was about how desenseitized his buddies had all become becasue of what they went through.
So at the end of the moive, the father and his wife have this pagckage that was sent to them from thier son when he was still in Iraq and it turned out to be an American flag which he had when he was in the war and sent it back home to his family. And it was really faded, and battered, and the ends were tattered. So the father takes it to this school I think, though I cannot remeber what sort of building it was for certain, and he strings the flag up and than duck tapes the pully strings to the pole and tells the janaitor, whom he had spoken to before in the movie, to just leave it just like that and not take it down.
Than the camera pans up to the flag, and there battered worn Amercian flag, is hagning upside down. And well I just found this out, for anyone else who does not know, a US flag hanging upside down is an internation symbol for distress. And that moment just hit me, becasue it is so true, this is a broken country.
10:15 PM - 4/12/2008 -
Upside down flag
And in most countries around the world an upside down flag is an offense against the country. Wonderful, the liberties one can take with the American flag.
dutchboy - 5:42 AM - 4/14/2008
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