DUMMERSTON — I attended the Brattleboro Union High School student walkout on March 14 to support my daughter and her classmates in protesting the lack of reasonable gun laws in our country.
Because of my distress over the lives lost everyday to gun violence, and specifically the growing threat of a shooting in our schools, I chose to carry a U.S. flag upside down.
I have spent half my life working on the ocean, where it is well known that flying a flag “union down” signals distress.
To quote the U.S. Flag Code: “The flag should never be displayed with the union down, except as a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property.“
I believe that I displayed the flag that day as an appropriate signal to communicate to our government that our children are in mortal danger - and that the current gun policy is not working.