Kristina and I set out for a walk yesterday morning, taking a leaf-covered bike trail and then an offshoot that goes through the cemetery. A loud boom when we were yet a great way off failed to alert me to what might be going on in the cemetery on Veterans Day. But as we got closer we could see cannon, and then it dawned us that we had stumbled onto Concord’s annual flag-retirement ceremony.
After getting a bit of history from costumed representatives of the Concord Independent Battery, we walked over to where retired flags were being burned. Kristina’s church choir led the assembled veterans and supporters in “God Bless America.” The song seemed to take on added weight this Veterans Day, as many of us held in our hearts an America built on the Bill of Rights and the wish to see justice for all.
May our military continue to be asked to defend the bedrock of the American experiment as they always have.
Suzanne's Mom's Blog 
So cool! What a great tradition they have. Cheers!
The members of the battery are extremely proud of the ceremonies the canon participated in, including, I was told, both the inauguration and the funeral of JFK.
It sounds like a moving ceremony to happen upon. I’ve never really liked “God Bless America,” as a song, though. Did you know that Woody Guthrie supposedly wrote “This Land Is Your Land” in reaction to “God Bless America”?
I didn’t know that about “This Land,” a theme song of my youth. That deepens my understanding of it.