To drive through our city’s national cemetery on Saturday afternoon was to be overcome by an emotional wave of patriotism, respect and gratitude for all those who risked or lost their lives to serve our country. Each headstone was marked with a small American flag. Larger flags flew throughout the cemetery. Flower arrangements were placed at numerous graves.
It was everything a Memorial Day weekend tribute should be to properly honor our courageous military veterans.
But at least one American – San Francisco Giants manager Gabe Kapler – wrote on a social media post on Friday that he won’t take the field again for the national anthem “until I feel better about the direction of this country” after the horrific mass shooting Tuesday in Uvalde, Texas, that left 19 Robb Elementary School students and two adults (not counting the 18-year-old gunman) dead.
Added Kapler in his post: “When I was the same age as the children in Uvalde, my father taught me to stand for the pledge of allegiance when I believed my country was representing its people well or to protest and stay seated when it wasn’t. I don’t believe it is representing us well right now.”
Nor was Kapler the only professional sports coach to question the direction of this country the past few days in the wake of Uvalde, the May 14 grocery store shooting that claimed the lives of 10 people in Buffalo, New York, and the May 16 church shooting in Orange County, California, that killed one person and injured five others.