MACDRIVE
Jul 4, 2006, 10:45 AM
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/4022307.html
NEW YORK - Along the tree-lined streets of a Brooklyn neighborhood, the American flag waves proudly from porches and cars, even from the back of a 3-year-old's tricycle.
So when residents in Marine Park awoke last month to discover the "Stars and Stripes" had been torched outside eight homes — including one where a firefighter killed in the 2001 terrorist attacks grew up — they raised new and bigger flags.
"We don't want these cowards to win," said Regina Coyle, whose son James died at the World Trade Center. "People are angry and hurt. We're fighting back."
The American flag outside the Coyles' home was burned down to the scorched white flagpole fastened to the front of their red-brick house, where Coyle and her husband, a state court officer, raised James and two siblings. It had flown outside the home every day since the death of her son, a 26-year-old firefighter.
Coyle recalled the shock of discovering a pile of ashes flecked with red, white and blue nylon on her front stoop as she left to walk her dog on the morning of June 22.
"I lost my son, how could someone do this to us?" she wondered. On Sept. 11, her son jumped into a taxi with two other firefighters and headed to Ground Zero.
Marine Park, known for its patriotic fervor, is a blue-collar community of firefighters, police officers and transit workers. Scores of their relatives and friends were lost in the attack.
The corners of six streets are named for fallen comrades; the Coyles' corner is named for their son. A pair of fire hydrants are striped with red, white and blue paint. It's a close-knit neighborhood where block parties and garage sales are common, where World War II veterans sit on porches as kids ride past on bicycles.
"For someone to burn the flag was like a smack in the face," said Barbara Davis, a 45-year-old mother of three whose flag was set ablaze. "We were always taught to have such reverence for the flag."
Her 6-year-old son, Benjamin, begged his father not to hang another flag for fear of a repeat attack.
"My husband said: 'No son, we have to stand up for our flag,' " Davis said.
Many families in Marine Park supported the constitutional amendment to ban flag desecration that died in the Senate last week by a single vote. The proposal was drafted in response to Supreme Court rulings in 1989 and 1990 that protected flag burning as free speech.
"The American flag ... represents honor and respect, our values and the people. America is you and me," Coyle said.
"They can smash pumpkins, steal your flowers, but burn the flag?" Coyle said. "They should be ashamed."
NEW YORK - Along the tree-lined streets of a Brooklyn neighborhood, the American flag waves proudly from porches and cars, even from the back of a 3-year-old's tricycle.
So when residents in Marine Park awoke last month to discover the "Stars and Stripes" had been torched outside eight homes — including one where a firefighter killed in the 2001 terrorist attacks grew up — they raised new and bigger flags.
"We don't want these cowards to win," said Regina Coyle, whose son James died at the World Trade Center. "People are angry and hurt. We're fighting back."
The American flag outside the Coyles' home was burned down to the scorched white flagpole fastened to the front of their red-brick house, where Coyle and her husband, a state court officer, raised James and two siblings. It had flown outside the home every day since the death of her son, a 26-year-old firefighter.
Coyle recalled the shock of discovering a pile of ashes flecked with red, white and blue nylon on her front stoop as she left to walk her dog on the morning of June 22.
"I lost my son, how could someone do this to us?" she wondered. On Sept. 11, her son jumped into a taxi with two other firefighters and headed to Ground Zero.
Marine Park, known for its patriotic fervor, is a blue-collar community of firefighters, police officers and transit workers. Scores of their relatives and friends were lost in the attack.
The corners of six streets are named for fallen comrades; the Coyles' corner is named for their son. A pair of fire hydrants are striped with red, white and blue paint. It's a close-knit neighborhood where block parties and garage sales are common, where World War II veterans sit on porches as kids ride past on bicycles.
"For someone to burn the flag was like a smack in the face," said Barbara Davis, a 45-year-old mother of three whose flag was set ablaze. "We were always taught to have such reverence for the flag."
Her 6-year-old son, Benjamin, begged his father not to hang another flag for fear of a repeat attack.
"My husband said: 'No son, we have to stand up for our flag,' " Davis said.
Many families in Marine Park supported the constitutional amendment to ban flag desecration that died in the Senate last week by a single vote. The proposal was drafted in response to Supreme Court rulings in 1989 and 1990 that protected flag burning as free speech.
"The American flag ... represents honor and respect, our values and the people. America is you and me," Coyle said.
"They can smash pumpkins, steal your flowers, but burn the flag?" Coyle said. "They should be ashamed."
