it's a mark of respect to the American flag. And they take it so seriously that it must always face forward. Now, on a flagpole that puts the stars on the left-hand side next to the flagpole ...

It was, of course, the huge American flag that flew over Baltimore's Fort McHenry on a hot summer night in 1814. "Was," because this object at hand, the original Star-Spangled Banner, is no longer ...