Many meanings of the USA national flag - veteran's funeral preparations

 

Detail from funeral home visitation before tomorrow's ceremonies.

Nearly all military veterans from the World War II era are gone now in 2026, and many from the Korean War have died, too. Even those serving in armed conflicts in the decades to follow in many cases have died. Not all of them opt for the guaranteed death benefit of steel casket, honor guard with USA flag. But many do wish to acknowledge their time serving the USA, as in this example from middle Michigan for a 93-year-old man who had served in uniform, beloved in his community as well as among friends and family.

Symbols like the USA flag (Old Glory, Stars and Stripes, Stars and Bars) can convey several layers of meaning at the same time. This flag is multivalent as national and international identifier for sports, for diplomacy and military, for law enforcement, for official ceremonies and occasions and holidays. It can have more personal connections and meanings at the regional or state-by-state level, and also for people, places, and things seen in cities and villages, as well as the household or company level. In popular culture, too, famous artists and ordinary people can easily fly a flag (or in protest invert the flag) or modify in new colors to suit less patriotic purposes; even in the service of commercial sales.

overview of the open casket viewing (detail magnified, above)

Without talking to the stream of friends coming to greet the bereaved family members it is hard to know which of the many layers of meanings of the flag on the coffin are uppermost in their minds. Is it window dressing of an official nature with nationwide currency and value? Or is it part of the man's self-image and the way that others viewed him in life, too? Certainly during the time in uniform it fully occupied his waking hours and shaped his personal habits, standards, and expectations as a young man and for a few years after being honorably discharged, too, no doubt. But from his early 20s (completion of military service) to his early 90s there were many other concerns and guiding principles. So, on balance, the couple of years during the Korean War only took up a small part of a very long and full life. And yet, in all those years he demonstrated his commitment to order and ethical behavior, public service and duty, loyalty and justice equal for the great and the small. So, in that abstract sense of goodness and mercy, his own life and the positive facets of USA nationwide ideals were coherent and maybe sometimes overlapped his own ideals, too. In that case, the national flag is less about politics and history and more about his personal standards and values.

In any case, speculating about the mix of personal and the many other layers of meaning will be difficult to untangle or document without in-depth and wide-ranging observations and conversations with those who knew him best. But for the purposes of this article, it is enough to acknowledge the many meanings - even contradictory ones - that a symbol like the American flag can stand for, gliding easily from one meaning to another; or expressing all the meanings simultaneously.

After the funeral ceremony is completed and the group of mourners reassemble at the graveside to bury the flag-draped casket, then an honor guard of veterans (occasionally there are ones in uniform who are currently in service, too) will carefully fold the flag to present to a representative for the bereaved family as a memento of the occasion.

Trends in phishing and spam email slop

During late December 2025 and the opening days of January 2026 it seems like 1/3 or more of the dubious, probably illegal (fraudulent, con-artist, phishing) unwanted SPAM messages pretend or presumptively declare a payment declines; or sometimes, a payment has been made to your account; more rarely, claim your reward or gift.

This email inbox screenshot from January 8, 2026 is an example of a spate of similar pitches intended to alarm or provoke an automatic (defensive motion) reaction. Ideally, the person looking through mostly authentic inbox messages will stumble onto one of these - sort of like a buried landmine that explodes when activated - and anxiously search for a "contact us" or "help" button. Once they have demonstrated a living person is attached to the email account and can be lured into revealing name, address, and bank account, then the theft of identity and assets is practically complete.

Thanks to malevolent and perverted use of Artificial Intelligence to craft "truthy" websites, text messages, robocalls, and email messages, the difference between actual senders and bogus ones is sometimes hard to distinguish. It goes without saying that a generation ago - long before the current crop of A.I. and slop that it discharges in volume and in diverse versions - such things were beyond even science fiction. Merely to describe how the psychological games and triggers are engineered would exceed most people's imaginations around 1999. In 2026, though, expectations for decency, honesty, accountability, and outrages of excess and of neglect have shifted. Many people under the age of 60 have very low expectations. Their 'normal' includes abuse, fraud, and corruption at small and at large scale, perhaps in line with the daily lowering of the bar set by POTUS, #TrumpConvictedFelon. Where all these declines in social infrastructure, hollowing out of social capital (trustworthiness), and impoverished cultural capital, and agitation of emotional reserves will lead is an open question. But it does not leave a lot of room for common decency, common sense, common good, or hope.