Stabbed

Make sure to read Kevin Baker’s brilliant essay on the “stab in the back” myth. My favorite bit:

The POW/MIA flags, with their black-and-white iconography of shame, now fly everywhere in the United States, just under the Stars and Stripes; federal law even mandates that on at least six days a year—Memorial Day, Flag Day, Armed Forces Day, Veterans Day, Independence Day, and one day during POW/MIA Week (the third week of September)—they must be flown over nearly every single U.S. government building. There has been nothing else like them in the history of this country, and they have no parallel anywhere else in the world—these peculiar little banners, attached like a disclaimer to our national flag, with their message of surrender and humiliation, perennially accusing our government of betrayal.

Yes, it’s really time to get rid of the POW/MIA flags. There’s not a scrap of evidence that any POWs were left behind in Vietnam, yet the flags remain, reminders of a narrative that was strongly evident in 1980s pop and political culture.