February 27, 2023

I Thought Doug Mastriano Had A PhD IN HISTORY

If he did, then why did he post this on his FB page this weekend?

Notice anything wrong? Not with the text - the image. Specifically the flag in the image.

It's this flag:


Still don't see the problem?

Count the number of stars. It's 6 rows of 8 stars each row. That's 48 stars.

In the US Flag, the number of stars in the blue field represents the number of states in the union.

And since Hawaii was admitted to the Union in 1959, there have been 50 states, not 48.

The Gulf War was fought in 1991.

It's the wrong flag.

This is the correct flag:

How could a PhD in History not know this?

Perhaps the image (looks like a painting to me) is a metaphor of some kind. An American serviceman from the pre-1960 past (as indicated by the 48-star flag) is acknowledging the serviceman from 1991.

But then that changes the meaning of the image from what Doug was looking to present, doesn't it?

I am sure there are thousands of other images Doug could have used but he went with this one - one with an anachronistic flag. It's still a big mistake for a PhD in history to make.

And if you think this isn't a big deal, just imagine if a Democrat were to use the wrong flag to commemorate the Gulf War.