After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, Eileen A.
Schwartz -- a San Diego teacher and artist -- wondered what, if anything, she
could do about it. 

On a visit to the home of her personal growth coach, Cait Casey, she decided
that she wanted to help portray the spirit of unity and patriotism that has
gripped the country since 9/11. Schwartz photographed a tiny flag that Casey
"had Scotch-taped on her fence: that was my first flag. And I love that
flag, it is somewhere in my collection."

The collection grew. She photographed flags on houses, flying from cars,
affixed to freeway overpasses. To these, she added drawings of flags and
memorabilia with flags.

Irene Patton, a teaching colleague at Miramar Community College who owns
Galleria dell'Aria in North Park, told Schwartz there would be a week-long
gap around Nov. 24 between exhibitions, and if she wanted, she could exhibit
her photographs at the gallery.

Schwartz displayed 350 photos, with the help of 15 volunteers who helped
mount them. The publicity generated by that exhibit prompted the Veterans
Memorial Center and Museum in Balboa Park and the city of Chula Vista to
invite her to show the exhibit under their auspices. So two such displays
were mounted in December.

The images of the flags "united people," Schwartz said. "Anyone who came to
see these exhibits were filled with a sense of peacefulness and joy. It took
away some of the horribleness of 9/11."

Now the growing collection includes contributions by anyone who cares to
send in pictures of flags. Among the contributors is local sports
photographer Thomas J. Kovtan.

The collection has grown to thousands of images, there are approximately 70
volunteers, and Schwartz has brought a new nonprofit organization into
existence: Flags Across the Nation.

Why did people react to 9/11 with such displays of patriotism?
"I think the main thing was unity, that people didn¹t feel alone," Schwartz
conjectured. "The flag pulled us together because it represents us and our
power and the fact that the terrorists weren't going to destroy us, nor take
our way of life away."

Interviewed at her apartment in University City, where a flag is draped from
the balcony, Schwartz wore a Mogen David pendant bearing a flag design. She
bought it from a vendor at the Yom Ha¹Atzma¹ut (Israeli Independence Day)
festival held recently at the Lawrence Family Jewish Community Center.
Schwartz said she is pleased that some Jewish institutions have contributed
to the growing collection, among them the San Diego Jewish Academy, which
sent a picture of the "human flag" created by students there, and
Congregation Beth Am, which contributed some letters written by its
religious school students to American servicemen abroad.

For Flag Day, June 14, Schwartz and a cadre of volunteers from the Vietnam
Veterans of San Diego have mounted displays at both the Veterans Memorial
Center and Museum (2115 Park Blvd.) and in the County Administration
Building (1600 Pacific Coast Highway). There also are smaller exhibits at
branches of the San Diego Public Library in University City (4155 Governor
Drive) and Rancho Penasquitos (13330 Salmon River Road).

The process of putting together the exhibits -- helped by homeless Vietnam
Veterans who have been overcoming such problems as drug addiction and
alcoholism -- has deepened Schwartz's understanding of patriotism.

"It isn't just saying OI love America' and waving the flag," she said.
"Patriotism is learning what you can do to give back to your community."
She said she emphasizes that concept -- which we Jews know as tikkun olam <
to her immigrant students in Miramar College¹s adult education department.
"If people don't care about the red, white and blue of patriotism, they do
care about how one can volunteer and make a difference in someone's lives,"
she said. "The Vietnam Vets are helping me a lot, and we are helping them
too. We are giving them an opportunity to feel proud, to work in the
community and put up exhibits."

The same homeless vets whom many people might reflexively shun on the street
engaged in friendly conversations with people who watched them put up the
exhibit in the halls of the County Administration Building.
"The flag unites us," Schwartz observed.