I remember this flag, and those who served under it

It took forty-two years longer than it should have, but the Government of Canada has finally done the right thing (ht:RK):

The Canadian Red Ensign has come back from the wilderness. The flag that flew for Canada during two world wars but that was supplanted in 1965 by the Maple Leaf has now gained official recognition as one of Canada's national symbols, having been entered in the Public Register of Arms, Flags and Badges of Canada.

Jason Kenney, Secretary of State for Multiculturalism and Canadian Identity, initiated the process by asking the Canadian Heraldic Authority to revisit the flag's status in the runup to the flag being hoisted at a ceremony at the Vimy National Memorial in France on April 9.

Robert Watt, the Chief Herald of Canada, said the Red Ensign merited its new recognition, given its importance as a historic national symbol. "It was a flag flown and used in Canada by Canadians as a sign of their nationality for quite a period of time," Mr. Watt said.

My grandfathers served under that flag. This nation did many things right, and many things wrong under that flag - but we grew under it. It's a part of us, a part that was denied to us for too long.

I remember that flag. I remember those who saluted it, who sacrificed so much under its aegis. I'm glad the Government of Canada finally remembers all that too.

Unfurling of the Canadian Red Ensign at First Canadian Army HQ in Normandy, June 29th, 1944.

A moth-eaten rag on a worm-eaten pole,
It does not look likely to stir a man's soul.
'Tis the deeds that were done 'neath the moth-eaten rag,
When the pole was a staff, and the rag was a flag.

- General Sir Edward Bruce Hamley, 1824 - 1893