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Blue Star Service Banner
Before there was a banner, there was the American flag.
John Harris's firstborn son, John Jr., joined the Army at 19 and left for Korea. This was during the Vietnam War in 1973. The American flag flew in front of their house outside of Berryville since the day he left. It's never come down.
The flag has stood to see the deployment and fortunate return of three of Harris' sons and two of his grandsons.
Harris is the proud owner of a Blue Star Service Banner. The banner is displayed in the homes of those who have family serving in the U.S. Armed Services.
They were first used in World War I, but fell out of popularity during the Vietnam War. The banners have made a comeback during the Iraq war.
While John Harris is retired from the Air Force, his descendants have served in Vietnam, the Cold War and the current the Iraq war.
"It's tough when there's a war going on," said Harris, of his family's long history of joining the service.
But he said it would be selfish of him to say he didn't want to put his kids' lives on the line over someone else's children.
Sitting in his home, with the banner -- a red rectangle with a single blue star in the center -- catching the light in the window, John described the time when his eldest son, John Jr., was first deployed to Korea.
"He thought he needed to get over there and whip it up," he said. "Young people don't mind -- he was willing to go."
Likewise, 10 years later, his son Pete joined the Army in 1984 and was eventually stationed in Germany during the Cold War.
Pete, who currently serves in the National Guard in Winchester, was a member of the cavalry unit that guarded the East/West border separating the two sides of Germany.
What he remembers most is being aware of the tension between the Soviet Union and the United States. He said American military risked getting arrested or detained as a spy if they crossed the border without full dress uniform.
It wasn't until almost 20 years later that John Harris received a Blue Star Service Banner from a rally in Winchester marking the one-year anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001.
John's grandson, Josh Harris, was deployed to Afghanistan in 2003 with his unit in Fort Bragg, N.C.
"I didn't know what to expect," he said. "But this is what I signed up for -- this is my chance to show what I got."
Josh served as an arms sergeant repairing guns and dismantling caches of weapons that were found by his unit buried in the landscape.
Josh was more taken aback by the climate more than looming attacks. "It was the kind of heat where your eyeballs sweat," he said, recalling his first tour to Kandahar, Afghanistan, which he described as relatively easy.
"It was the initial onset [of the war], and no one was really sure what the war would amount to exactly," Josh said.
In the first year of the war, the main goal was to draw the Taliban out and neutralize the situation. He described the Afghani people as curious about the soldiers, while remaining timid and stand-offish.
His second tour was more dangerous. He was stationed at a FOB, or forward operation base, on the border of Pakistan. While he declined to give the exact location, he hinted that it was an area known to be controlled by the Taliban.
He said he never felt completely secure in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, a few men in his unit were killed in combat.
"As soon as you step out of your [tent], you could get a rocket whizzing through," he said.
However, he said civilians in America have no reason to feel unsafe.
"There's no reason to single out an entire culture just because there's a few bad eggs doing the wrong things," he said.
Just like everyone else, it is unclear to Josh how much longer the war will go on. He described the majority of Afghanis as "a bunch of farmers who just wanted to be left alone."
However, he is certain that the Taliban will remain in control as long as the people fear them.
"If they don't get what they want, they will kill people," he said.
John Harris said he never expected any of his family members to join the service. But he did encourage it. He believes military service should be mandatory, saying it gives a "basic foundation for a stable future."
But being in the military doesn't necessarily mean supporting the war.
"I think we've been pretty brazen in saying that they're dictators," he said of the Iraq war. "I think we should talk to all these countries and try to negotiate with them."
Pete Harris agrees. "It's a huge drainage on the U.S. Treasury," he said. “People are going to get killed and you wonder what the end result will be.”
However, Josh doesn't necessarily agree with his father and grandfather. He doesn't believe the war is fruitless and a waste of time.
"That negates what my friends died for," he said.
But he asserts that everyone is entitled to their own opinions. "That's why I went over there, to fight for their opinions."
Peter Reed, John Harris's grandson, is currently serving in the Marines.
No matter what the politics, the Harris family has the pride.
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