Raising the Colors

The world is twilight gray as I park in front of 1st Infantry Division Headquarters. There’s a hint of dawn in the east, but stars still fill the sky. In a few minutes, the sky will brighten and the stars will disappear into the Kansas sky.

     Two more MP vehicles park next to me. Sitting beside me is a young private, fresh from the Military Police School. He has a tight triangular package of blue with white stars in his lap.

    “Whatever you do, don’t drop the flag,” I said.

     That’s what the package is. Folded just so the night before is the flag of our country. It’s kept at the MP station where we picked it and the shell for the cannon up.

     The term shell is misleading. It’s the bottom half of an artillery round and has a place to insert a blank shotgun shell. We will fire the round as the flag is almost at the top of the flagpole.

     We got out. There’s five of us for this morning’s detail.

     My patrol corporal and I walk over to the flagpole. She and I will do an initial inspection of the pole to make sure the ropes aren’t tangled or broken.

    Then we’ll check the cannon. The most important check is to make sure the breach closes correctly and the rope and trigger function properly.

    If we even think something is wrong with the gun, we won’t fire it.

    But it passes the tests.

    We have one more task to perform with the cannon. I put my hands together, and she steps into them and then up to peer down the barrel of the cannon. She uses her flashlight to look for anything that might be in the barrel.

     An embarrassment from years before was when someone put toilet paper in the gun tube. When the salute was fired, this mass of flaming confetti came shooting out of the barrel.

     Another time, someone put a dozen tennis balls down the barrel. When the gun fired, the balls flew out and bounced onto the road.

     But the tube is clear.

     Satisfied, we walked back to join the waiting MPs and relax for a minute.

     I’d selected the MPs for Flag Call the evening before as part of our Guard Mount exercise. During Guard Mount, the Corporal and I would inspect the troops to make sure their uniforms were just right and looked good. The best got this assignment.

     With about ten minutes before Reveille, I fall in the soldiers. We march quietly across the road, down the sidewalk, and to the flagpole. With a quiet, reverent command, we begin the ceremony.

     The Private approaches the pole. He and the Specialist gently unfold the flag. I hear them talking a little. It’s instructions from the Specialist on what to do, and what not to do.

    “Make sure you do this right,” I hear him saying as they hook the flag onto the rope. “We don’t want to raise the flag upside down.” They unfurl the flag so it will come out easily and go up cleanly.

    While they’re doing that, the Corporal and a PFC load the gun. The PFC had carried the shell casing and round over. She makes sure the breech is locked and cocks the gun. The PFC holds the lanyard that, when pulled, fires the gun.

    With everything ready, and with a minute to go, we all stand at parade rest. The young Private holds the flag, the Specialist stands ready to hoist the flag, and the PFC waits. The Corporal stands opposite me at parade rest.

    The only sounds are distant traffic and a light breeze rustling the trees. It’s a holy moment.

    We’ve got the timing down perfectly. With five seconds to go, I snap to attention, and command, “Detail, attention.”

     The PFC, the Corporal and I snap to attention.

     We know Reveille is about the start because from the speakers there’s always a hiss of noise before the music starts. It’s almost an electronic clearing of the throat.

     The music booms out. Reveille echoes across Ft. Riley. The Specialist pulls on the rope that takes the flag from the Private’s arms. The Corporal and I salute and watch the flag go smartly up the pole.

    The breeze catches the flag, and the Stars and Stripes dances out against the brightening sky.   It’s a sight to stir the soul.

     I think of men I knew who served under that flag.

     Men like Lenisio Montoya, who fought the nightmare of trench warfare during WW I.

     My Uncle Neff, who lost a leg to a landmine in the war after that.

     Toby Madrid, who waded ashore in Korea, froze in the brutal winter there, and then had a ring-side seat for an atomic bomb test.

     Of a cousin, Gary, lost in the jungle in ‘Nam and wondering if he’d see another sunrise.

     Or my father on some cold, nameless road in Germany with a machine gun waiting for the Russians that never came.

    The flag represents them, and those men are yardsticks I measure myself against.

     As the flag rises, it goes with a promise of what we can be, and a prayer we will live up to the ideas and sacrifices it represents.

     When the flag is about two-thirds of the way up, the Corporal says quietly, “Now.”

     The PFC pulls the lanyard on the cannon and fires the “Salute.” The boom echoes across Main Post as the flag reaches the top of the mast.

     As the trumpet stops, the Specialist ties the rope off, steps back and salutes.

     “Order. Arms,” I command. We drop our salutes.

     “Secure the cannon,” I order.

      With the flag flying in the Kansas morning, I fall the troops back into formation and march them back to our patrol cars.

     Another day has started for the Big Red One.

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