Immigrant teacher's quiet response to attack on U.S. flag spoke volumes

The current debate surrounding our flag and national anthem reminds me of two stories I heard as a teenager in rural Iowa.

Henry Veldhuis was a physics professor at Northwestern College who also taught a physics class at Sheldon High School. One day in the late 1960s I was surprised at how he started our class.

He told of an activist who went around college campuses saying that he considered the American flag "a piece of dirty underwear." (I assumed this was a euphemism for whatever was really said.)

Mr. Veldhuis then told us that he was raised in the Netherlands, where he had watched the U.S. Army marching through his town bearing the American flag as they liberated his country from Hitler's occupation. I remember his words to this day.

As he shook his head in disbelief, our teacher said, "When this activist says the American flag is a piece of dirty underwear, I just don't get it."

Mr. Veldhuis then proceeded to teach us physics.

In those same days I studied Spanish from Alberto Montes, who was from Cuba. He had been a wealthy lawyer before the communist revolution brought Fidel Castro to power in Havana. Mr. and Mrs. Montes had such great wealth, they were able to bargain with the totalitarian regime to give up all of their wealth in exchange for being able to leave and emigrate to America.

I asked my mother about the Montes family to check facts. She showed me a handmade wall clock she had bought from Mrs. Montes. She told me that the Monteses had no children but lived out their lives as a part of the community of Sheldon, where they were the only Hispanics at that time. Mom said that they never again had anything close to the kind of wealth they had left behind.

I knew from being in Spanish class how much they loved America and the freedom they found here.

In late September of 2001, my dad passed away. The evening before the funeral and burial service there was a reviewal at the funeral home. I was amazed when Mr. Veldhuis came to offer his condolences.

My farmer father had served the community in many ways, including on the school board when Veldhuis taught there. I told my former teacher that thanks to his physics class being so well taught, when I got to college and studied physics I did better than many. He deflected the praise, saying it was because I was a good student. But I knew better.

One of the most touching moments of my life was the graveside service the next day. It included an honor guard provided by the American Legion. Dad was a World War II veteran and had volunteered many times to so honor fellow veterans when they passed away.

The guardsmen carefully and correctly folded the flag from the casket. One of them handed it to Mom, saying, "Harold served with honor."

Fifty years later, I think back to Mr. Veldhuis and his understated response to the "dirty underwear" flag story. As a teenager, I'd wondered why he added no harsh condemnation of the disrespectful activist. Now I think I know why.

No one would have dared say such a thing about the flag of the Nazis in occupied Europe. Mr. Veldhuis did not dispute an American's right to say what he did — he simply countered it with his own narrative.

I am glad that I live in America, where a teenage farm boy could study under a Dutchman and a Cuban who both escaped oppression for the freedom our flag represents. Their stories still inspire me over 50 years later.