Probably a useless addition to this thread, but again from a UK military stance.

My man's side of the family are all in the armed forces and in order to make light of a serious fact, they call themselves 'gun fodder' and 'professional killers' - that is what they are. My eldest brother 'in law' as a RSM (highest ranking soldier if not at Sandhurst Military School of the Royals and Riches) has the misfortune of being the coffin leader when the planes full of dead boy soldiers land back in the UK. He folds the flags, he orders the gun salutes, he has lost many of his men. Me and him do not argue about the reasoning of war, we stand from two very different viewpoints. We respect our differences. The point I'm trying to make is that as a staunch Protestant and a RSM in The King's Own Scottish Borderers Battalion, he burnt 'the' flag in a private ceremony in rememberance of his men, past, present and future. Burning and folding a countries flags is far less serious than being haunted by the twisted faces and bodies of strangers and comrades lost in another pointless invasion.

I think we owe more to remember lives lost and ruined than a material item that will never symbolise what the people in all our lands really want. Peace.

~ Sorry about this post, I'm sure this attitude was unwanted ~
Asia
xxx