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forward. He requested, and received, the lighter from his fellow veterans, and then he turned to address the younger oppositionists. “I am going to give you back your lighter, but before I do, I want you to understand why we oppose what you are doing. Many of us have fought against tyrannical forces that would love to see our flag, and what it stands for, marred, as you are planning today. We fought in trenches and saw dear friends fall around us. Each time we buried one of these brave men, we would cover his coffin with the flag you now want to burn. It stood as a symbol of the ideals he had died for, and the country he loved and would never see again. “Some of us helped liberate prisoners whose emancipated bodies made them look like walking skeletons and whose only crime was being born into a certain class of people, or standing up against the injustices they saw around them. These people dreamed of the freedoms we often take for granted, freedoms this flag you desire to burn gives you in letting you burn it. When we freed them, they lifted our flag high in honor. “Our country is not perfect, and we can understand protests against certain actions. Proper challenges to 34