After trying to forget the unpatriotic insults I saw at the GVSU/Hillsdale game, and failing to do so, I decided to point out the blatant examples of disrespect I saw.

A few fellow alums and myself decided to show our Laker pride and go to the football game on Sept. 11. During the half-time show, the announcer declared that the bands and choirs had created a special show to honor the soldiers and the victims of 9/11. Great, I thought; It only seemed fitting. What I didn’t expect was the band to insult instead of honor.

During the finale, the color guard was supposed to carry out a gigantic American flag down the 50-yard line. In order to prepare for this final march out onto the field, the team pulled out the flag and laid it on the ground along the field’s track so it would be in easy reach. Hello!!! Any cub scout knows an American flag is never supposed to touch the ground. In fact, you’re supposed to ceremonially burn any flag that does. And yet the team just threw it down and walked away from it. Never mind the fact that it had been raining all night so the ground was wet and muddy.

And if that wasn’t insulting enough, when they were done with their patriotic performance, they balled the flag back up, shoved it into a garbage can and wheeled it off the field!!! Has no one ever seen a patriotic ceremony before? Flags don’t get balled up and stuffed into a garbage can. Anyone with an ounce of respect would have properly folded it up and carried it off the field.

As an American, I found these two acts to completely overshadow the show the band put together for 9/11. And I’m just a civilian. I can’t imagine what any soldier or family member of a soldier must have thought when they saw what I saw. Somebody really needs to give the GVSU band, color guard and director a lesson in basic respect and how to properly pay tribute to our soldiers, 9/11, this country and its flag.

Hannah Schwab
GVSU student