When people started wearing flag pins, I refused. I knew there was a reason, something on the edge of my memory told me that wearing a flag pin was a despicable thing to do, but I wasn’t sure why.
Today it all came flooding back when NPR ran its story: Why Do We Care About Flag Pins?
The nickel summary: the practice was brought to big time politics by Tricky Dick and his chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman. It is another relic of Nixon’s imperial Presidency.
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Established: 21 November 2004
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11 comments
Other than on television, I’ve never seen a person wearing a flag pin. Even when I lived in Pittsburgh. If someone I knew ever wore one, I’d probably have asked what political office they were running for.
I hate “year” pins that I’ve had employers want me to wear.
I hate “name tags” that I’ve had employers require me to wear.
I hate those “sticky name tags” that you have to slap on yourself when you go to meetings or corporate get-togethers….
Not wearing them doesn’t make me less loyal or less “part of the group.”
I wish someone would retort back to these boneheads who keep bringing up this stupid “wanna-be-gate” if they knew where those flag pins were made and what the working conditions were at the factory and if any slave labor was involved. If not, shut-the-blankety blank-up.
Geez.
oh..by the way…thought you might like to see some serious airborne action!
http://unsped.smugmug.com/gallery/5321017_CEEdq#324974586_vYvNJ
A friend in SoCal really liked Rotary Club, but he was constantly complaining about the apparent requirement to wear the pin at meetings. He said, and it’s true, the pin destroys your lapel.
I don’t know how many uniform shirts and blouses [the military jacket] that I had to replace, because the stuff you had to pin on tore the fabric. The old wool uniforms could stand up to the abuse, but the newer polyester versions seemed to go “holey” in no time.
Actually, Jill, the name tags and flags are necessary for people like the Shrubbery – it helps him remember who he is and where he is.
Yeah…pins and sticky label things really wreck havoc with silk shirts. And, if forced to provide a name, my nom de name tags is Francesca.
My boss had one of those flag pins he stuck on his lapel after 9/11. It got confiscated at an airport security checkpoint. I suppose the TSA was afraid it could be used as a weapon with that little point on the back! The irony of patriotism. I thought it was funny. He wasn’t amused.
I’d like to see them enforce a rule like that at the local airport, given that the civilian airport is actually on Eglin AFB and uses Eglin’s runways. The average military passenger probably has two dozen of those little points holding on badges and insignia.
On one trip they confiscated a small pair of scissors my Mother had but ignored her aluminum knitting needles. It’s not that the scissors couldn’t have done serious damage… to someone’s cuticles… but those needles would go straight through you. There’s no logic to the system.
Oh yes! I know all about the badges and pins and name tags etc! I had to wear a couple ribbons and medals on my dress uniform and sometimes on fatigues. *shrug* Nothing I could do about that. But I refused to wear a name tag at a business meeting!! A company I once worked for loved little tags for everything! Apparently they always hired people with no memories. I must have been the exception! I got so fed up at a meeting for FOUR attendees including me, that when the secretary gave me my name tag, I took it out of the plastic holder, got a black marker, put a line through my name and put “HEY YOU!” in big letters! LOL If I could be bothered to learn and remember their names, they could learn mine! What a damned joke! And VERY discourteous! If they can’t be bothered to take the trouble to learn my name, to hell with them. I was told off my the boss for defacing my tag! So, I got my marker out, got a piece of paper and wrote “JOB SUX! I QUIT! BYE!” and walked out. LOL
It felt so good! 😀
I got used to wearing a security badge in the military because they would shoot you if they didn’t see it or it was the wrong color, besides the etched metal badges for NSA were handy scrapers for windshields. Guards at really secure facilities tend not to have much imagination.
I have a badge holder that goes around your neck so I don’t have to pin or clip anything on my clothes, and it is possible to read the name if you are really close… and the light is right… and the print is large.
In general, I agree that if the meeting is important you make a point of learning the names of those attending. I take notes because the act of writing “fixes” things in my memory. It is extremely disrespectful not to make the effort to remember names after you’ve been introduced.
Oh yeah! I learned about the security badges when at GD. We had a demonstration of what happened when someone wearing a certain color badge went down a corridor that was a color not on the badge! Don’t!! They really have NO sense of humor. Which is as it should be of course. 🙂
Same here, of course. 🙂
There are corporations that get almost as excited about such things, especially after you tell them that nothing they make is acceptable as a gift, much less worth stealing.