What happens when a community deserts its wounded warriors in favor of social justice warriors?

The town of Wakefield, Massachusetts is in the process of finding out.

On May 16, the Veterans Advisory Board (VAB) voted 7-0 to request that the town honor Flag Day “by flying only the American flag” from public flagpoles on June 14.

By a vote of 4-2 on June 12, the Town Council said, “Thanks but no thanks,” to our veterans. The Town Council had already left the veterans hanging for three weeks before finally voting to hang them out to dry.

The Veterans Advisory Board request letter was submitted to the Town Council on May 17. Ed Dombroski attempted to bring it up for discussion at the Town Council’s May 22 meeting, but Chairman Jonathan Chines would not entertain the request, claiming it came in too late for the agenda.

If it had been a request from the Human Rights Commission, does anyone think that this Town Council would have made the HRC cool their heels for three weeks waiting for an answer?

During the month of June, the Pride flag flies from the new, second flagpole at the Americal Civic Center, which was recently installed by the town solely for that purpose. The plan all along was to take down the Pride flag on June 15 and raise the Juneteenth flag, which would fly until June 21, at which point the Pride flag goes back up for the rest of the month.

The veterans’ request would have meant that the Pride flag would come down a day earlier than planned so that for one day only, June 14, Flag Day, the American flag could fly on its own.

It wasn’t a huge ask, but your Town Council couldn’t bring itself to honor the veterans’ request.

So, in the eyes of four Town Councilors, it’s perfectly fine to take the Pride flag down for a full week to recognize another newly minted progressive holiday. But squeezing in one day to exclusively fly the flag of the United States of America is a bridge too far.

The Veterans Advisory Board is appointed by the Town Council to advise them on matters of importance to veterans. The flag is extremely important to veterans, all of whom served under its Stars and Stripes.

I understand that Chairman Chines heard from a couple of veterans who differ with the VAB’s stand. Does that carry more weight than the Veterans Advisory Board’s 7-0 vote? Apparently, it does.

Seeing veterans snubbed by elected officials in this manner rightly gets people upset. But you get what you vote for – or in the case of most people, what you didn’t vote for.

This is what happens when just 10-15 percent of the electorate bothers to vote in Town Elections. It leaves the door wide open for a small, but well-organized and highly motivated minority of woke activists to get themselves elected to positions of power and make decisions that don’t reflect the will of the majority.

So, to all those on social media now vowing to “vote them all out,” I’ll believe it when I see it.
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[This column originally appeared in the June 22, 2023 Wakefield Daily Item.]