Retirement of a US Flag Ceremony
Submitted by Aneida: Prior ADAF, wife of AF (R), homeschool mom to four and Scout mom extraordinaire! She writes, “There is some controversy about whether it is correct to cut up the flag before you burn it. Some people say it is proper to burn the flag in one piece. They even go so far as to say that cutting it up first is desecrating it before you burn it. Others say that it is visually beautiful and more meaningful to cut it up first. The US Flag Code doesn’t say yea or nay, so we cut it up first. The US Flag code can be found at http://suvcw.org/flag.htm.”

Retirement of the Flag Ceremony
Note: The color guard performs the ceremony, so they stay up front. At the end, we dismiss everyone.

Speaker: “Tonight we are going to retire an old flag, which has become worn beyond repair. The correct way to do this is to cut the flag into pieces of cloth, separating the blue field of stars from the red and white stripes. This is not a flag burning, but rather a flag retirement, a solemn ceremony to honor a worn symbol of the United States of America. This is a solemn ceremony. Please turn off all cell phones and pagers. [Pause.] Please rise.”

Speaker: “Color guard, attention! [Pause] Color guard, advance.”
[Walk in with the flag.]

Speaker: “Please join us in saying the Pledge of Allegiance to this flag one final time.” [Recite]

Speaker: “Please join us in singing ‘America the Beautiful.’” [Sing]

Speaker: “Please be seated.”

Speaker: “A flag is an honored symbol of a nation’s unity, its hopes, achievements, glory, and high resolve. The flag of the United States of America is such a symbol: of freedoms bravely fought for and hardily won, of protection under the Constitution of the rights and privileges of all Americans, of promises of fulfillment of all of their hopes and principles and ideals. It is also a symbol of the duty of all of its citizens to serve in the time of need, to speak out for what each considers right, and to help correct, under the law, that which is honestly believed to be wrong.

“The flag is just a simple piece of colored cloth, sewn together in a red, white, and blue design, a piece of cloth that of itself does nothing more than hang or blow in the wind. But to many thousands of people throughout our nation’s glorious history, it has stood tall, standing as a monument of freedom for all Americans. Men and women have given their lives for it, fought for it, cried for it, and revered it as a symbol for the greatest country on earth. Books, songs, and poems have been written for it, and our National Anthem was inspired by it. Each day our children are encouraged to pledge their allegiance to it, and whenever it is raised or passes by, we all place our hands over our hearts or salute it. It stands for the freedom we all share and the pride and patriotism we feel for our country.

“First, we cut off the field of blue, so that it is no longer a flag.” [Cut off the blue field.]

Speaker: [FIRST STRIPE:] “The thirteen stripes stand for the thirteen original colonies, which are Delaware, Massachusetts, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and New Jersey.” [Cut off a stripe after each statement.]

[SECOND STRIPE:] “The white stands for purity.”

[THIRD STRIPE:] “The red stands for courage.”

[FOURTH STRIPE:] “Give me liberty or give me death!”

[FIFTH STRIPE:] “One if by land, two if the sea.”

[SIXTH STRIPE:] “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution of the United States of America.”

[SEVENTH STRIPE:] “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

[EIGHTH STRIPE:] “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

[NINTH STRIPE:] “Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.”

[TENTH STRIPE:] “Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

[ELEVENTH STRIPE:] “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged.”

[TWELFTH STRIPE:] “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”

[THIRTEENTH STRIPE:] “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Speaker: “Resolve: that the flag of the United States be 13 stripes, alternate read and white; that the union be 13 stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation. Our country has grown from a little group of 13 colonies to a united nation of 50 states.”

[Read dates of admission and state names, posted on www.HomeschoolBlogger.com/military]

Speaker: “This concludes our ceremony. Thank you for coming.”

Heart Matters

Attention, all homeschooling military moms! Get ready to exercise your right to exercise. Get ready to be motivated to move. Get ready to be challenged. But let me first allow you to be at ease. I want to welcome you to the first edition of the PT/Drill column of the Home Front magazine. It is ironic that I am writing with the theme of “finishing strong” as I hope to “start strong” in my first year of homeschooling this fall. What I hope to do in these columns is provide you with motivation and information, as well as some creative ways to squeeze fitness into your busy homeschooling days. But before I do that, I think it’s crucial to have the right attitude toward fitness so that we can keep our priorities in place as well as balance our lives the way God desires us to.

Why did you decide to homeschool? There are probably as many reasons why out there as there are subscribers to this e-Newsletter. But for most of us who are trying to train our children to be godly adults, it boils down to a heart issue. Proverbs 4:23 tells us, “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.” Well, I realize Solomon was speaking of keeping our spiritual hearts healthy, but I want to suggest that we should have the same attitude toward our physical hearts. The number one cause of death for women and men in America is heart disease. Exercise and eating a healthy diet are the best things we can do for our physical hearts. We need to keep our children’s and our hearts in mind as we plan our school days. If physical education in your homeschool is slipping through the cracks, I encourage you to fiddle with your schedule and get their young bodies moving along with yours. I’ll be giving more tips and ideas on how to do this in future issues. The time you spend exercising, be it walking or running, can also be used as prayer time. I’ve often used my time running as my time alone with the Lord. So training your physical heart really can help you keep your spiritual heart in good condition.

With all the demands on my time, why should I make fitness a priority? To answer this question, I’d like you to put yourself in your husband’s boots. Why does he have to stay physically fit? Why does he have to do those silly PFTs and early morning unit runs? Physical training prepares our spouses for the rigors of their job. It is keeping them strong for the battles they may face. They do not just run and do pushups and pull-ups to look pretty. I challenge you to begin to view your own fitness this way—not as something to be done to reach an unattainable body image but as something necessary to keep up with the demands of being a full-time mom, teacher, counselor, doctor, cook, you name it. You say, “But I don’t have the energy to exercise.” That’s the most amazing thing about exercise. It requires a lot of energy but somehow also gives you more. It stimulates your brain, acts as an anti-depressant, and ultimately trains your body to work more efficiently, thus keeping you less tired, irritable, etc. What an amazing gift God gave us, and it doesn’t come in a pill! At my house, my husband knows me so well that if he senses that I am crabby or irritated, he usually suggests that I go for a run. And he’s usually right. After even a short three-mile run, I am able to focus better as well as improve my mood … so everyone else is happy when I exercise. [Editor’s note: three miles is SHORT?]

How am I going to fit exercise into my already-filled-to-the-brim days? This is the question I am hopefully going to be able to continue answering for you each month. As you wind down this school year, I challenge you to start planning and looking ahead to how you can make physical fitness a bigger priority in your family’s life. We don’t want exercise to ever become a bigger priority than our relationship with our Heavenly Father, nor more important than time with our spouses and kids. The key is going to be keeping fitness in balance, not obsessed with it, but also not neglecting it. If you already have a great system down and want to share any of your ideas with all of us, please send them to me at www.HomeschoolBlogger.com/3BoystoLove. Also, if you have any fitness-related questions or topics you’d like to see covered in this column, please send them my way. But I don’t want you to wait until next month to start moving—get those hearts pumping today! And that’s an order!

Emily Barba runs and PTs aboard Kaneohe Marine Corps Base in Hawaii. She also stays in shape chasing after her three young boys, age 6, almost 5, and 2. Emily looks forward to her brand new homeschooling journey this fall from her Marine Corps family’s new duty station in Port Hueneme, California. Emily enjoys scrapbooking, reading to her sons, and training for marathons. She feels honored to be allowed to write this column despite her six marathons and triathlon experience. [Disclaimer: While she has stayed in Holiday Inns and other hotels, Emily is not a doctor and we suggest you seek the advice of your medical professional before beginning any activities or changes to your nutrition.]

The Race
By Janet Kelly

Memory Verse: “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.” (Hebrews 12:1)

This is my first year of homeschooling our precious son. Many people told me during the first year, especially kindergarten, you are mostly trying different curricula, teaching styles, and different routines to see what fits you and your child best. One thing I have discovered is that no matter how many children you are homeschooling or how long you have been homeschooling, there is a constant battle common to all homeschooling moms. It is finding the perseverance to keep going. For me personally, I have battled with giving up on those days when it appeared so overwhelming. On those days when I felt it would be easier to let someone else teach him and have time to myself. But I have learned that is not the answer and God wants more for our family and me.

In Hebrews 12:1, we are told that we are “compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses” so we should “lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us.” If you are like me, you may be familiar with this verse but may have never looked at it closely. Several points stand out to me that I would love to share with you.

Who is our “cloud of witnesses”? The Greek word for “witnesses” used here is the origin of the word “testifier.” I believe that our witnesses or testifiers are fellow homeschool mothers that have been schooling longer than we have or have experience in an area we may need to learn more about. How about the wonderful veteran homeschoolers who now have magazines, websites, and books to encourage us? How better to learn about something we don’t have confidence with or something we aren’t familiar with than a fellow homeschooler who has taught it or is teaching it? They can testify to their knowledge of that subject.

The word “perseverance” used here is also from a Greek word that translates to “cheerful endurance” or “abiding patience.” One thing I am learning with homeschooling is patience. We all want more patience but find ourselves being almost afraid to ask for it. But notice it means cheerful endurance and abiding patience. God doesn’t expect us to do this alone! He wants to be with us, walk with us, guide us, and help us find joy in our journey.

Another aspect of perseverance is that many times it calls for us to wait patiently on the Lord after the seed is planted to see it grow. We all desire to see that growth in our children when we are in the day-to-day drudgery of schooling and wondering if they are learning or even listening. But, with even small things like letter sounds, I had to wait patiently till one day I was surprised to have Wyatt spouting off letters and sounds like a pro! Hallelujah! He really was listening!

I don’t know about you, but I can sure get bogged down in some of the most trivial things that take my eyes off what is important. I need to “lay aside” those entanglements and focus on what is important for us and what God has called me to do specifically for our family. I need to monitor the TV time and what we watch more closely for all of us. I need to be more mindful of the time I spend on the computer. I could go on, but you get the idea. My focus for this season of life is my family and what we consider important for Wyatt’s education.

I think what I like best of all about this verse are those five little words that are so easily overlooked while reading it: “is set before us.” God has already gone ahead and prepared the way for us. He knows the plans He has for us (Jeremiah 29:11). We aren’t alone, and we don’t have to face each day alone. We don’t have to figure this out by ourselves! God simply is asking us to give Him some time for Him to show us what His plans are for our family and our child[ren]. He would love nothing more than to have us release it all to Him and let Him take us to each step, one step at a time (Matthew 6:33).

As we each face the closing of a school year, whether we stop for the summer or are gearing up for school year-around, we can continue to persevere in this race God has called us to called homeschooling. He is right there with us. He longs to guide you and help you. Homeschooling is one of the greatest things we can be called to do. It can be one of the most satisfying. And yes, it can be one of the hardest. But we don’t have to do it alone. We have our witnesses and we have our God!

Heavenly Father, thank you that You love us so much that even before You call us to something, You go ahead and prepare the way for us. Thank You for loving us so much that You never ask anything of us we can’t do because You equip us and guide us each step of the way, if we will only let You. Bless these homeschoolers as they push on to the end of this year’s race and bless their endeavors with the fruit of Your knowledge. In Your name we pray. Amen.

Janet Kelly joins us and writes: I was born and raised in Columbia, South Carolina, and I am married to my best friend, Michael, who is an Army chaplain. We are currently stationed in South Korea. We have one son, Wyatt, and I am in my first year of homeschooling, though I have had the leading to homeschool since Wyatt was a baby. I enjoy reading, writing, and spending time with “my boys.” I am also a huge cat lover! Mike teases me that my newest hobby is shopping in Korea. He may be right!