The Folded Bookmark (Part 1)

Young Mark watched the American flag climb the flag pole. He was eight years old and a cub scout. Mimicking his troop leader, Mark held his cap over his heart, as he sang the “Star Spangled Banner” with the rest of his troop.

Even at his young age, Mark understood the meaning of the flag. His father told him stories about his grandfather who flew a fighter plane in the Vietnam War. On his fifteenth mission, he was shot down, but managed to eject seconds before the plane crashed into the jungle. On landing, his chute tangled in the branches above, leaving his grandfather hanging helpless above the jungle floor. North Vietnamese soldiers on patrol captured him. A year later, he died in an enemy prison camp from malnutrition and disease. Mark’s father wanted his young son to remember the sacrifice their family paid for their freedom.

Mark stared up at the flag, which had reached the top of the pole, and now fluttered in the breeze. For the first time, Mark began to understand what his father was trying to teach him.

Mark became a scout at the age of ten. He held his cap over his heart, no longer mimicking his leader. The cap was held there because his heart was part of the flag and the country it represented. He’d recently read the story about Francis Scott Key, a Washington lawyer who went to Baltimore to negotiate the release of American prisoners of war from the British. During a night on a British ship, he witnessed the bombardment of Fort McHenry. The bombing continued through the night. In the morning, a flag sewn by Mary Pickersgill was raised above the fort. It was the signal that the fight would go on.

Key was so moved, he wrote the poem that would become “The Star Spangled Banner.” The pride he felt for the flag high above him and the country it represented—his country—overwhelmed him. His head bowed to hide a tear trickling down his cheek.

Years passed. Mark finished university and became a paramedic. He married and was an expectant father on the day the planes flew into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan.