Flag patches on guard's uniform violates state policy
The Associated Press
August 28, 2002 1:57 am
Posted on 08/28/2002 6:22:07 AM PDT by Constitution Day
The Associated Press
Flag patches on guard's uniform violates state policy
August 28, 2002 1:57 am
ASHEBORO, N.C. -- A prison guard says he was fired after he had United States and North Carolina flags sewn onto his light blue uniform shirt and refused to remove them.
Hayes was fired last month as a corrections officer at the Randolph Correctional Center in Asheboro. He had been told to remove the patches from his state-issued uniform or turn it in.
"I'm a good officer -- or I was," said Hayes, who lives in Ramseur and worked for the state Department of Correction for two years. "Sometimes there are orders that should not be given -- and that's one of them."
Hayes said he was told he was being fired for insubordination.
"They told me it might open the door for someone who might want to wear a neo-Nazi emblem," Hayes said.
Randolph Correctional Center Superintendent Clinton Holt declined to comment on Hayes' description of events, saying it was a personnel issue. Holt did say the corrections department has a month-old appearance and grooming policy that dictates everything from jewelry to shoe colors -- "leaving little ... to individual expression," the policy states.
"If you let each individual express their own preferences on their uniform it's no telling what you'll have," Holt said. "Uniform means everything is the same. We're representing the state and someone has made the decision that this is how we'll look."
But the flag distinguishes itself from all other arguments, Hayes said.
"There's no other symbol that comes to representing what our society is based on -- the Constitution and those flags. When I turned my uniforms in, I still didn't take them off."
The flag isn't being slighted, correction officials said.
"This is not a matter of patriotism as it is a matter taken to maintain good order and discipline," said correction department spokesman Keith Acree said. "If he wanted to make a suggestion he should have gone through the chain of command and not just slap a patch on there."
Hayes said he has appealed the firing. He said that others who have heard of his plight have urged him to start a petition to require those flags on state uniforms.
Hayes has written and called government leaders including U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., U.S. Rep. Howard Coble, R-N.C., and Gov. Mike Easley to ask for their intervention.
He said he will never forget being told to take off the flags.
"It reminded me of getting off the airplane in California, when I came home from Vietnam," Hayes said. "I got spit on for just doing my job."
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Dollars to donuts the so-called "neo-Nazi" emblem the DoC functionary was referring to is the Confederate battle flag.
Agreed. From a state whose past two governors REFUSED to honor Confederate Memorial Day, if this wasn't the reason, it's not far removed
Stupid idiot.
There's your answer. The ignorance displayed of that individual for referring to the flags as "patches" tells me HE should have been the one fired....
My dad is a Vietnam vet, and I asked him once.
He came home in '68 and had to fly into San Diego, I think.
Anyway, when he was flying home to NC (still wearing his uniform) he said some hippie called him a 'babykiller'.
He said he just laughed at the idiot.
State jobs, including DOC, are politically controlled. That there is an instance of this does not surprise me at all. There are people in important places who lack the patriotism that many of us think they should have before they occupy those places.
Keep fighting, guys.
uniform
Function: noun
: dress of a distinctive design or fashion worn by members of a particular group and serving as a means of identification; broadly : distinctive or characteristic clothing
Function: adjective
1 : having always the same form, manner, or degree : not varying or variable
2 : of the same form with others : conforming to one rule or mode : CONSONANT
3 : presenting an unvaried appearance of surface, pattern, or color
To allow "individual expresion" would defeat the purpose of the uniform. Ideally all the guards would be indistinguishable from one another by the prisoners. I see the flags on the uniform as a possible focal point for a prisoner to take exception to, and engender resentment among other prisoners or possibly file a lawsuit. Prisoners have nothing to do all day but think of ways to buck the system.
I thought it sad during the Carter administration that US Navy personnel were proscribed from the wearing of beards. Carter was a Navy man, what was he thinking? But, it was made the regulation, and those that were "too attached" to their facial hair were given the opportunity to seek employment elsewhere.
In a low paying position with arguably the worst working conditions in the United States, why would a prison guard make an issue of this? Lawsuit on the way. A Vietnam vet must be at least in his late 40's by now this guy must have had a checkered job past to wind up starting 2 years ago as a prison guard.
They should all be the same weight & height, then, and wear hoods.
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