Die for a flag?

I've had just about enough of people scorning the American flag, saying that it's "just a piece of cloth that too many people have died for." Don't think for a minute that people die for a sheet of fabric; that completely misses the point. First of all, no soldier aspires to die for his country, the idea is to make the enemy die for his. But more to the point, brave Americans die fighting to uphold what the flag represents, and so by respecting the symbol we respect the lives given for what it represents: 13 Colonies, 50 states, woven together by the essential American values of Liberty, e pluribus unim, and In God We Trust. That's why I salute the flag. Not every child can understand this, nor the adults who think they're so sophisticated that they can take it for granted. But teaching them to respect and salute the flag lays the foundation for passing these values on from generation to generation so that the question at the end of the forst stanza of the national anthem is a resounding YES! The star spangled banner does still wave over the land of the free and the home of the brave.