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This issue is dedicated to the memory of my grandfather,
Albert Hobart Speer, (December 21, 1898 - July 4, 1978)
on his favorite holiday.

The 4th of July is upon us and the flags are flying in force this year. There is a street in St. Teresa's parish in South Buffalo, New York, that takes display of the flag very seriously. The flags will fly as an individual act of respect on the porches of nearly every home on the street. They fly as a collective celebration from the street poles along its edges.

I like driving on Hayden Street. The respect for the flag makes me feel good.

Long ago and far away, I learned a tough lesson about how much flags can mean.

My squad was the point element on a hill assault somewhere in a place called War Zone C. As I was about to start up the hill, my commander approached me with some trite words of encouragement. He must have known that survival was all the motivation I needed. He patted me on the back, stuck something in my rucksack and mumbled something like, "Fly it proudly when you reach the top." While he pontificated about pride, I prayed.

The hill was only four hundred meters high, but the battle made it seem like Everest. About an hour into the fight and half way to the summit, one of my guys took a grenade fragment in the jaw. He was a scared, young, black kid from Philadelphia. I cleaned the bone and blood and broken teeth from his mouth while the medic struggled to keep him from going into shock.

Not long after that, a bullet struck the fallen tree I was using for cover and some bark, or a bullet fragment, or both, struck me below the eye, causing it to swell shut. Such an injury stops a boxing match but not a battle. So the kid with the broken jaw and I helped each other press on to the summit. We helped each other because we both needed help. The issue of skin color wasn't an issue in that rarefied air of interdependence.

When I was sitting, in near total exhaustion, on the battered burning hilltop, the issue of color started to matter again.

The battalion commander, from a helicopter a thousand feet above the hill, asked my radioman what happened to the flag he'd given me. I had forgotten I had it. I asked one of the guys to pull it out of my pack and stick it on a tree trunk.

The soldier who did so was black and he got my attention with a soft, "I'll be damned."

The flag I had carried to the summit was not the flag of our nation. It was a state flag -- from my commander's state -- filled by the stars and bars of the Confederate battle flag. Looking at my squad through the filter of that flag, I became acutely aware that almost half the bloodied, tired soldiers who had fought their way up that hill were black.

It just didn't seem like the thing to do at the moment, commander or no commander. I tossed the flag into one of the small fires burning near-by and told the radio operator to tell the commander I'd lost it during the fight.

This year, our flag means something again. It means that we are one people, one nation. That meaning is the essence of the day we celebrate and the ideal so many have sacrificed for.

Just like those flags I see on Hayden Street, the flag on that blasted hill in that God-forsaken place said something important about those who thought it wise to fly it. I like the message on Hayden Street a lot better.

Stephen T. Banko

     She was "The Songbird of the South" -- the on-air host of three popular programs in Radio's Golden Age and one of the nation's three most admired women. She would eventually sell more than $7 million in Defense and War Bonds and be honored by every American President from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan.

     He was America's favorite composer -- a Russian immigrant destined to create a personal empire by writing both the words and music for some of America's best-loved musical stage plays and movies.

     Their historic collaboration turned a rejected song from a World War I soldier show into a continuing charity fund-raiser, a professional hockey team's good luck charm, major league baseball's "stretch music", a new president's emotional sign-off statement and... America's second national anthem.

On 13 January 2000, we adopted our little Roggi — a beautiful 8 month old Tan Terrier, from the Lost Dogs' Home in Melbourne, Australia.

We do not know whether he was one of the many dogs that had been scared by the New Year's Eve fireworks and had run away from their homes, ending up at the Lost Dogs' Home.

We do know, however, that we cannot risk losing our little Roggi, so he comes out with us on New Year's Eve, last year and this year, to visit my Mum.

Then we take Roggi home before midnight. When he hears the fireworks and starts to pace and look frightened, we just give him a big hug and he knows that all is OK and he is no longer afraid.

Roggi Happy Playing Ball

If more people spent time with their pets on New Year's Eve (and other celebrations like the upcoming "Fourth of July" in America) and provided care and a hug for them when the fireworks started, then maybe we would have a lot less scared animals, less injured pets and the animal shelters would not be inundated with these poor frightened souls.

Our animal shelters do a great job and deserve a well earned break and all the support they can get. Give your pets love and be with them on New Year's Eve, as well as any events around the world that use fireworks, rockets, firecrackers, etc. ... then they will not run away.

~ Carole Goldsmith
Gardendale, Victoria, Australia
Contact Roggi and Carole at: goldor@primus.com.au

Pass this on to anyone who likes sitting out in the evening or when they're having a cook out. So you don't like those pesky mosquitoes, especially now that they have the potential to carry the West-Nile Virus? Here's a tip that was given at a recent gardening forum: Put some water in a white dinner plate and add a couple of drops of Lemon Fresh Joy dish detergent. Set the dish on your porch, patio, or other outdoor area. I'm not sure what attracts them, the lemon smell, the white plate color, or what, but mosquitoes flock to it, and drop dead shortly after drinking the Lemon Fresh Joy/water mixture, and usually within about 10 feet of the plate. Check this out---it works just super!