There is a flag on that coffin

There is nothing like a flag on a coffin to jolt you right back into reality. Yesterday when I left the bank in Harrisonburg VA I was stopped at an intersection while a funeral procession rolled by. For someone who tends to glaze right over the newest Iraqi war statistics in the news something in me woke up when I saw the flag laying over the coffin as it passed by. I watched the faces in each of the following cars as though the slow pace of the procession was a slow motion glance into each of their windows. A grey haired old lady curled and makeuped to the hilt, a 14 year old girl with a brown ponytail staring stoicly forward, a portly middleaged couple in a blue clunker, a five year-old boy turned around on his knees in his seat, aware that everyone is watching but not quite sure why. So these are the faces affected by war I thought. On later reflection I can't honestly say the person under the flag fought in either of the Iraq wars, the Vietnam war, or world war II. But whoever it was certainly brought liberation to my mind. Liberation from the ties of apathy.