TEXARKANA — Back in 1984, the Republican Party held their national convention in Dallas. Incumbent president Ronald Reagan was overwhelmingly nominated for a second term, which he won decisively.
No surprises there. The nomination was a foregone conclusion, as was the election.
So one would have expected the 1984 convention to be little more than a footnote in history.
Yet that convention changed history.
Because it was there that a man named Gregory Lee Johnson, a member of the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade, decided to make a statement by burning the U.S. flag.
Johnson was arrested for flag desecration. He decided to make a federal case out of it and sued, claiming flag burning was an act of free speech, protected under the Constitution.
Incredibly, in 1989 the U.S.
Supreme Court agreed with him. Flag burning, before considered a heinous act, was now a protected act of protest.
But there is more to the story.
After Johnson was arrested, the burned remnants of flag lay smoldering on the ground.
Someone tried to stomp out what flames remained. That's when a man named Dan Walker, a West Point graduate and a veteran of both World War II and the Korean War, stepped in.
Walker gathered the burned cloth and the ashes. He then disposed of them by burial, according to proper flag care guidelines.
His actions did not go unnoticed. President Reagan sent him a personal letter of thanks.
And the U.S. Army awarded him its highest civilian decoration.
But Walker did not retrieve the desecrated flag for personal glory. He did it for Old Glory.
Dan Walker, patriot, died Sept. 16 of prostate cancer. He was 81.
May he rest in peace.
- Texarkana Gazette
Opinion, Pages 5 on 09/28/2009