The way things are in America right now it wouldn't surprise me at all if a display that was meant to honor soldiers from this area that died in combat was desecrated in some way. Apparently the people of Mooresville, North Carolina were thinking the same thing because they had their Boy Scouts, Eagle Scouts, and some police who would stop by from time to time in place to guard the display from would be vandals.
This is an annual event that has taken place for as far back as I can remember and the flags are arranged to honor military service men and women. The number of flags represents a specific number of people that have served or are serving in the military. Many of them were killed in action.
I was a Boy Scout as a kid and at least back then, it was a really beneficial organization. It was all about teaching kids outdoors skills like fishing, starting fires from natural materials, and just basic outdoorsman stuff. This was before the world and in particular the USA went all nutso with the social justice stuff. These days, there is always a fear that someone out there is going to be anti-American enough -despite being American - that they will go out of their way to destroy something like this when if that is the way that they feel, all they would have to do is just not go look at it.
There were 130 Eagle Scouts that stayed on site for days to defend the flags if necessary and plenty of adult chaperones as well. I commend these kids for doing this but at the same time it makes me sad that in all likelihood it is probably necessary for them to do so.
The entire thing went down without incident and no anti-USA types turned up to try to cause trouble or to do something disrespectful to the flags. Plenty of people have turned up to honor the soldiers past and present though.
This town is about 4 hours from where I live, so I didn't actually go to it this year, I just heard that it was happening and found it a bit disgraceful that these patriotic communities need to have memorials like these be guarded by children to ensure no one messes with it. I tip my hat to you kids and hope you end up learning as much from the Scouts back when I was involved in it.
The area I come from has a lot of patriotic folks in it, so we don't have to worry about things like this and outside of the major metro areas of the state, most of the time you don't have to worry about this happening either. Many of my regular drinkin' buddies served in the armed forces and the flag is very important to them. I have a difficult time understanding the mind of a person that would think about vandalizing a display like this and do you ever stop and think about how the reverse never happens? There are some thing that patriotic conservative Americans disagree with but you don't see them going out of their way to needlessly dishonor whatever display someone else wants to do.
I think there is a fundamental difference between a Conservative and a Liberal. Conservatives are generally less violent people even though especially from a military service point of view, the Conservatives are far more capable of violence should they decide to engage in it.
Happy 4th to everyone out there!