Aren't We In America?

I thought i would share this story since it is Memorial Day weekend....i told this story a few weeks ago when i had to speak and someone told me i needed to blog this anyways....it's from my journal summer of 2007

Some things are just plain hard to explain to your children! This was one of those times! Ty and Ryan have basically been brought up on an island of no worries and strong patriotism. They hear the national anthem every morning when the base raises the flag, they also hear the Japanese national anthem as that flag goes right up alongside Old Glory. Every evening at sunset they stop their play when they hear colors and pause what they are doing while the stars and stripes are lowered. They stand before every movie at the theatre for the national anthem and practice flag protocol with numerous other events they attend. The last time we were all in America on vacation was summer of 2007. We went to our first movie stateside in a long time! The movie began and Ryan, who was almost 6, gets up and walks over to me and says, in his deep authoritive voice, “Mom, (but he says it Mome) they forgot our flag” I almost cried when I had to tell him that they do not do that here. He was visibly upset and his little lip quivered and his voice shook when he asked this simple sentence that broke my heart, “Aren’t we IN America?”