Maybe I should have said something every time I saw the stars and bars flapping behind the two-ton pickup trucks my friends drove during my time at Hays High.

Perhaps that might have been the right time to speak up and express my concern with an image whose history was interwoven by hate, malice and cruelty.

In a perfect world, I would have approached them and tried to make them understand that flag symbolized not only a lost cause, but treason of the highest order against our land.

But the truth i...