Wearing "red" on Friday's

Ok, by now most of us have gotten one form of an e-mail or another about an American Solider flying the body of his fallen comrade home and the plane applauding him and out of this comes "wear red on Friday's to show our troops support."

Ok, I have read several of the e-mail versions and like most internet fiction, what could have been started in "fact" has been turned into a story. Regardless, I noticed a few months ago that a few of my co-workers were all wearing red. Asking if I "missed the memo to wear red today" they reminded me I'm supposed to wear red to show my support of the troops.

Now I am patriotic. I fully support the troops and I am thankful each and every day for the job they do to not only keep me safe but keep me living in a FREE country. That being said, why all of a sudden am I deemed "not a patrioit" and "unsupportive of our troops" if I choose to not wear red on Friday's?

Isn't this why our troops fight? So that we can all wear whatever color we want on any given day of the week? Isn't this a principal of freedom to be able to wear what we want??

All of a sudden, something that started as a "story" and a sad account of a solider who was killed returning home in a casket has turned into downright harrassment!

Yesterday at work it started all over again. I didn't say anything, just kept working and not really thinking about it too much when all of a sudden, people were passing out red ribbons and the next thing I knew, one person after another accousted me asking where my red was? Didn't I support our troops? Why wasn't I wearing red? HUH? First of all, I was NEVER offered a red ribbon personally, number 2, I probably wouldn't have worn it anyway. I started thinking about how for years we always wore a yellow ribbon to show our support? Remember the song "tie a yellow ribbon round the old oak tree"? I am not a history major but I was brought up believing we always wore yellow in these situations... Regardless, why am I being attacked at every turn for my not wearing of red?

I honestly felt like Kramer from Seinfeld. In the episode where he was walking in the Aids Walk but refused to wear the ribbon. He supported the cause, raised money and was in the walk, but didn't want to conform to the idea of supporting AIDS and didn't like being "forced" to do anything. At one point, a co-worker of mine mentioned that very same episode to me after I was talking about it during break.

I don't have a problem with anyone wearing red on Friday's. If you want to wear a different colored ribbon every day of the week that's fine, but when you start forcing me to do it too, that's where I have a problem.

I could be wrong, but I don't think our troops think me unsupportive because I don't wear red on Friday's. I do my share of things to support them and keep them in my prayers every night. I hang my American Flag proudly in front of my home and I have some items that are "red white and blue" and I wear them proudly when I want to. But being forced to do that is taking away the reason that our troops put their lives on the line every day.

Please folks... If you want to show your support by wearing red on Fridays, then by all means do it. But if you do, don't attack others who don't wish to do that.

P.S. I would much rather it be yellow. When I see red all I think of is "blood" and I think about troops being killed rather than thinking about them, their humanity, their families and such. Whoever decided blood red would show support for their troops must have been color blind...