CNN uncovered a big stink this weekend in a little town. It’s not really news to us, though, because The Great Amherst Flag Drama has been playing out for over two months now.

Things change though. The drama started when one of our Physics professors, Jennie Traschen, foolishly made the mistake of trashing the flag in a September 10 Amherst Select Board meeting. The flags had been flying since August 29, when our town put up 29 flags to appease a group of veterans.

It’s a good guess that Traschen deeply regrets her remarks, or at the very least, the timing of them. After all, she did make them the day before all of our lives changed in the tragedy. “It’s [the flag] a symbol of terrorism and death and fear and destruction and repression,” she said.

Nevertheless, the point of this editorial is not to condemn Traschen. As horrible as her remarks are, that has been done enough.

Instead, concentration should be paid to how long these flags are going to stay up. The plan at the current time is to leave the flags up until Veteran’s Day. That plan should be changed.

Across the nation and even across the globe, American flags are flying high in a sign of solidarity. They’re everywhere we go lately. Is this corny? Perhaps. Is this the right thing to do at the current time, though? Absolutely.

Amherst should nix any and all plans that it has of taking down the flags. Americans are flying flags from their cars, light posts, and homes. For Amherst to step away from this wave of patriotism in another month makes no sense.

We have been told time and time again that this new war we are fighting is going to be a sustained mission. It won’t be over anytime soon -it’s going to take perseverance and persistence to complete the mission that President Bush has undertaken, if it is possible to complete it at all. It could take years for the Unites States to return to some semblance of the way things used to be.

Likewise, those flags should remain flying. For as long as it takes, America needs any and every reminder that can be given to show that we are not invincible, and that we have duties as citizens that no one should forget. That is what the American flag stands for now – it’s a reminder of the respect we should carry for our fallen countrymen and for the duties we all have as American citizens.

The town of Amherst may as well admit publicly that the flags in town will remain up indefinitely. Because even if the Select Board were to pull the ultimate boner of taking down the flags a mere two months after the disaster occurred and a month into our military campaign, someone would have the right idea. Most likely, Amherst’s veterans would put more flags up.

Staff editorials are the majority opinion of the Collegian editorial board.

Information from CNN.com was used in the writing of this article.