I have always loved the

Confederate flag. Oh, I know there are many flags that

were unfurled by the Southern Confederacy, but the only

flag that I have known intimately has been the so-called

"battle flag," the "stars and bars,"

the "Southern cross."

As a child growing up in

Tennessee, I played "army" with the kids from

the neighborhood in the woods next to our house. Once in

awhile, we would play "Americans vs. Nazis"

(most of the time, no one wanted to be a Nazi), but more

often it was "Yankees vs. Rebels" (no one ever

wanted to be a Yankee!).

Even then, we made or

bought flags to stick somewhere on our kudzu, honeysuckle

and fir tree "fort." The unfortunates in the

neighborhood who were forced to play the boys in blue,

flew the U. S. flag. Those honored to represent our

venerable ancestors gathered under the banner of the

South. There was no hint of anti-Americanism or racism...

we were just proud to have been graced by God to be born

in the land of Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson,

Jefferson Davis and other well-known and revered native

sons.

In high school, the band

would play "Dixie" two or three times a

football season and both American and Confederate flags

would fly side by side on the 4th of July during the

annual parade down Board Street.

When I went off to the

Marine Corps in 1970, I eventually took my three foot by

five foot Confederate flag and hung it in my wall locker

at Fort Lee, Va. While my Northern-born comrades would

talk about having an Irish, German, Italian, English, or

African heritage, I was content to be a Southerner.

I'm told that eons ago, my

ancestors migrated from Germany, or England, or Ireland,

or somewhere. As far as I was concerned, they left all

that behind to come to the American South and, anyway,

Europe couldn't even fight a war without Americans to

seal the victory, so who cared? The banner in my wall

locker was, to me, simply a reminder of home, of

"old times not forgotten."

Somehow, when I saw it

hanging there, I felt less lonely and isolated, closer to

my family and home, and comforted by the remembered

smells of bacon and sausage, of burning autumn leaves,

and of fish (which Grandpa and I caught down by the Fort

Patrick Henry Dam) sizzling in the cast iron skillet.

When I got married, I took

my well-traveled Southern cross and hung it prominently

on the wall in the living room behind the sofa in our

small apartment. My wife finally persuaded me to allow

her to replace it with a painting or some such piece of

junk. She didn't share my affection for the flag.

It's a wonder we stayed

married after I discovered that flaw. The notion that,

somehow, displaying the flag was a symbol of intolerance

and bigotry was preposterous. It was something that a

Yankee might say. Yet, as time went on, I couldn't help

but notice that many of the people who were using my flag

to promote their cause were... well... undesirables.

I saw my first Ku Klux Klan

march some decades ago and I was horrified to see these

hooded horrors marching down the street of my town

carrying my flag! In fact, every time I would see a

special about the Klan on television (and in those days,

they caused not a little concern to decent citizens of

all colors) there, displayed as though it was an emblem

of death, was the Confederate flag.

Later, when the neo-Nazis,

the skinheads, and the white supremacists crawled out

from under their respective rocks, they grabbed hold of

my flag and co-opted it for their cause. Only much later,

did I realize that, while the flag was a symbol of

heritage for me, it had also been a symbol of oppression

for millions of other Americans who also had a Southern

history, though one much different from mine.

I remember the very first

time I viewed the beloved flag with shame. A black

Marine, a good friend of mine stationed with me at

Quantico, Va., was helping me unload my stuff as I was

changing lockers. When I took the flag out of the locker

and folded it, I felt his eyes burning into the back of

my head.

After a few moments, he

asked me what the flag meant to me and I responded with

all the things that I had always recalled. I told him

about a great-great grandfather, Alexander Epps, who

never owned a slave and was a struggling farmer in a

place called "poor valley" in Hawkins County,

Tenn., left his home to fight against soldiers from the

north who were, in his view, invading his homeland and

killing his friends and neighbors. I told him that, to

me, it just meant home and heritage.

Quietly, he said, "It

sure means something different to me." I silently

packed the flag away and never could bring myself to hang

it up again.

I wish I could fly it and

display it with pride like I used to when I refought the

Civil War in the woods next to the house. But my Southern

battle flag means something a lot different now than when

I was a child. Maybe it always meant something different

and I was just too young or too trusting or too naive to

see it.

I believe that the flag

still has a place in society. I believe that it should be

flown over the graves of Confederate soldiers, at the

recreated battles that take place frequently around the

South, in schools when the Civil War is studied, at

special events sponsored by heritage groups, such as the

Sons of Confederate Veterans, and maybe in other

appropriate places as well.

But the flag just has too

much baggage to fly over a state capitol building or to

be incorporated as a part of a state flag. People don't

think of heroes and causes and heritage when they see the

flag. They think of burning crosses and hoods, of

violence, of oppression, of slavery, of shaved heads, of

lynchings and beatings, even of swastikas and outlaw

motorcycle gangs.

Following the close of the

War Between the States, a great man encouraged Southern

soldiers to return home and become good citizens of a

reunited United States. He said, "I think it the

duty of every citizen... to do all in his power to aid in

the restoration of peace and harmony." That man was

Robert E. Lee.

[David Epps

is rector of Christ the King Church. He may be contacted

online at [email protected]. ]