Standing for the republic by burning its flag: My weekend with U.S. veteran Jay Carey

A U.S. veteran, in burning the flag, upheld the very ideas of the republic and freedom that the flag is supposed to represent.

By Will McCorkle,

For the Express-News

Sep 22, 2025

Rod Lamkey/Associated Press

I was able to spend a weekend in Washington, D.C., with U.S. Army veteran Jay Carey and the organization that he helped start, Resist and Persist, a group of veterans who are standing against the growing police state and actions of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Carey was arrested Aug. 25 after burning an American flag outside the White House, just hours after President Donald Trump signed an executive order to “prosecute those who desecrate this symbol of our freedom, identity, and strength to the fullest extent permissible.”

Trump said the American flag is "a symbol that unites and represents all Americans of every background and walk of life,” and he condemned burning the nation’s flag, calling it “disgraceful.”

Flag burning is protected as “symbolic speech,” so Carey was charged with lighting a fire in an undesignated area, along with creating a public safety hazard by actions “that threatened, caused damage to and resulted in the burning of property,” according to court documents.

Carey pleaded not guilty to the charges.

In burning the flag, however, Carey not only stood up for free speech but for his country. I hope we all learn from his example.

Carey is not an anti-American radical. He is a patriot, which is why he burned the flag. He is a Bronze Star veteran who served in the Army for 20 years, including in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

You could tell the passion he has for this nation. It is a nation that he was willing to fight for and is now fighting for in a different way against what he sees as a fascist takeover.

Supporters of Jay Carey, a U.S. veteran who burned a flag near the White House last month, wait outside during his arraignment on Sept. 17 in federal court in Washington, D.C. The American flag in the hands of the Trump administration means nothing, our guest columnist writes, saying that it is far better to burn the flag than to use it as a symbol to usher in authoritarian rule and undermine the republic. Rod Lamkey/Associated Press

He told me the reason he burned the flag is to stand for the First Amendment and the Constitution, and in opposition to a president who wants nothing to do with either one. He felt it was his duty as a veteran not only to push back against the current administration but also to go a step further and make a public display proclaiming we are still a free country.

In a deeply ironic way, Carey was upholding the very ideas of the republic and freedom that the flag is supposed to represent, while the movement supposedly aimed at “protecting the flag” is defying the republic, bringing troops to the streets and undermining the ideals of the Constitution.

Carey was hoping to show that our current government is doing something far worse than burning a piece of cloth. It is burning down the very foundations of a free society: ideas like due process, freedom of speech and the freedom from government overreach.

The American flag in the hands of the Trump administration means nothing. It is far better to burn the flag than to use it as a symbol to usher in authoritarian rule and undermine the republic.

The voice of Carey and the other veterans I met camping out in front of Union Station demonstrate real patriotism and valor. It is easy to wave the flag. It is harder to stand up for it against authoritarianism.

Will McCorkle is an education professor who works with asylum-seekers in the Mexican border cities of Matamoros and Reynosa.