Has putting up the American flag on Memorial Day become a political statement? It seems so, as few people in Malibu do this. I can remember when we first moved here more than 40 years ago, flags were numerous. Memorial Day is a sad day for me as it brings back thoughts of my friends and my cultural heroes who were killed in World Wars. My roommate in flying school, Charlie Rowe, amateur golf champion, was practicing gun runs in Florida. He flew right into the ground and I was selected to take his body home for burial. It was mid-winter and the grave had to be chopped out of frozen earth. One of my early heroes in music was Charles Butterworth, talented British composer, who volunteered for service in 1914 and was killed at the Battle of Somme in 1916. I think of him every Memorial Day. Another hero was the German painter, Franz Marc, a sensitive and gentle man. I read the last letter he sent to his wife in 1916. He was living in a rabbit hutch during the late fall on the French front. The next day he was killed by a sniper. There was also Richard Roth, an amusing and very intelligent young man, who was a gunner on a B24. His plane went off the runway at Kwajalein and disappeared. One of my closest friends in high school was Tsuneo Yamasaki. He went back to Japan for college and was drafted into the Japanese army and was killed on Majuro Atoll. His interned sister later informed me. There were many others in my time overseas, but these names keep coming back. It is, perhaps, why I always fly the flag on Memorial Day. Surely others in Malibu can celebrate with this small gesture.
O.P. Reed