Category: News, observances, history

A Doctor, a Lawyer, an Immigrant, and a Flag that Still Waves

This post reflects on the significant contributions of two figures in U.S. history: Francis Scott Key, who wrote the national anthem while grappling with his ties to slavery, and Dr. William Beanes, whom Key rescued during the War of 1812. It also touches on the symbolism of the American flag and its association with national identity.

updated July 23, 2025

When I originally wrote this post, I wanted to highlight the role that two physicians played in United States history. Part of that history includes the role of a lawyer who is better known than they are but has a dreadful legacy.

The man credited with writing our national anthem was a slave owner.So I have updated this post with links exploring his character.

June 14, Flag Day

While we consider July 4 to be the birthday of the United States, June 14 is the birthday of the United States flag. Although June 14 is observed as National Flag Day it is not a federal holiday, so banks don’t close and no one gets a day off work.

But we enjoy it anyway, wearing red, white, and blue, and displaying the flag at homes and businesses. Some patriotic organizations pass out small flags or flag pins to wear.

American flag waving at a Vietnam Veterans Wall replica
Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall replica

The United States flag is often called the “Star-Spangled Banner”, after our national anthem, which is more about the flag than about the nation. I don’t know if this is true in other countries, but we tend to closely identify our flag with our national identity; maybe that’s one reason there has been such heated debate about the way people acknowledge and respond to the flag publicly.

A Lawyer and a Doctor

So that brings us to a true story involving a doctor and a lawyer that almost sounds like the opening line of a joke. Today doctors and lawyers sometimes bear the brunt of jokes or criticism, but in this story they played a pivotal role in American history. It’s a story that most people know, but maybe not the whole story.

The Lawyer, Francis Scott Key

Francis Scott Key’s role in our national anthem is well known-he wrote it. A lawyer, he was on a rescue mission during the War of 1812, and spent a harrowing night watching the British assault Ft. McHenry near Baltimore, Maryland.

The next morning, when he saw the red, white, and blue flag still flying over the fort, he was moved to write a poem. That poem became “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

Francis Scott Key had a conflicted relationship with slavery. Key defended enslaved individuals seeking their freedom as an attorney and believed that “by the law of nature all men are free. The presumption that even Black men and Africans are slaves is not a universal presumption.”

Despite any objections Key had to the institution of slavery, he did take part in its proliferation. Key most likely purchased his first enslaved person in 1800 or 1801, and by 1820 he owned six enslaved people. His family owned slaves at the time of his birth, and at least one of his children owned slaves after his death.

National Park Service website

What So Proudly We Hailed: Francis Scott Key, A Life

(affiliate link)

The Doctor, William Beanes, M.D.

Dr. Beanes’ role is less well known. Dr. Beanes was the object of Mr. Key’s rescue mission. Dr. Beanes had been captured by British soldiers and imprisoned on a ship. Local citizens arranged for Francis Key to go to the ship and negotiate his release.

It is believed the British were persuaded to do so because Dr. Beanes had previously treated injured British soldiers. Whatever the reason, the “elderly” (age 65!) doctor was freed and he, Key, and John Skinner, watched and waited out the battle on a near-by truce ship.

Birth of an Anthem

“Interestingly, he( Key) made no effort to promote this composition. In fact, he did not even sign it. He merely showed his lyrics to a few friends, who then circulated the work.

For several decades, Key’s name rarely appeared alongside these lyrics, which — by the time of the Civil War — had become arguably America’s most beloved song.

It wasn’t until 1931 that a congressional resolution signed by President Herbert Hoover made “The Star-Spangled Banner” the U.S. national anthem — an anthem that never would’ve existed had a lawyer not been asked to help out a doctor.”

(TIME.ORG)

The Immigrant, James McHenry, M.D.

Even Ft. McHenry has a medical connection- it was named for a physician, James McHenry.

James McHenry emigrated from Ireland to the American colonies in 1771. He studied medicine with Dr. Benjamin Rush in Philadelphia and immediately volunteered as an Army surgeon when the Revolutionary War began.

After serving in the medical department in Massachusetts, New York, and at Valley Forge, he became an aide to General George Washington and subsequently an aide to the Marquis de Lafayette.

President Washington appointed McHenry Secretary of War and he continued in that post under President John Adams. Baltimore’s Fort Whetstone was renamed Fort McHenry in his honor.

(Spiegel, A.D., Kavaler, F. History: James McHenry, MD: Physician, Patriot, Politician and Poet. Journal of Community Health 28, 281–302 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1023990125827)

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A Son Reflects on his Father’s Life after D-Day, June 6, 1944

On June 6, 1944, D-Day marked the Allied invasion of Normandy, leading to the liberation of France and the end of World War II. Bill Hart, a WWII veteran, captured his traumatic experiences through art and memoirs, highlighting his struggles with PTSD and the significant impact of his memories on his life and family.

updated June 2, 2025

Annually, in the United States and in Europe, people remember  June 6 , 1944, as D-Day.

On June 6, 1944 Allied troops invaded Normandy, liberating France from Nazi occupation and ultimately ending World War II.  

Remembering D-Day by the Numbers

(source-The American Legion Magazine) 

  • 156,000 troops from Allied nations, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Norway, and others 
  • 5 beaches along 50 miles of Normandy coast 
  • 6000 ships
  • 50,000 vehicles
  • 11,000 planes
  • 12,004 killed, wounded, missing or captured 
image from Lightstock.com, affiliate site

Remembering D-Day by a man, his art, and his son

I learned about D-Day from my late friend Bill Hart, who died in 2014. Bill served in the U.S. Army during World War II , and his unit was part of the force that invaded Normandy.

Bill wrote an illustrated memoir about his military experiences. Through his written and visual account, he left us a firsthand account of an experience that changed his life and changed the world.

In this updated version of a previous post, I share some of Bill’s art and memories of Bill shared by his son Terry (my thanks to Bill’s late wife Greta who graciously gave me permission to share from Terry’s social media post)

He was a true artist and entrepreneur who always enjoyed laughing and meeting new and interesting people. He was wise enough to not limit his conversation to only sports, religion or politics most men comfortably slide into.

But instead, he always talked about real thoughts and feelings as well as the history of his Irish roots.

Bill’s son, Terry Hart
D-DAY VET REMEMBERS NORMANDY

Fighting the war in Europe

As a young 18-year-old, he volunteered into World War II seeking adventure way before he was called to serve.

Terry Hart

In 1943, Bill deployed to England, and prepared for the invasion. What he thought would be a grand adventure turned into a nightmare which he vividly captured in his book.

Several days into the fighting on the beaches at Normandy, he was assigned to pick up and transport the bodies of fallen soldiers. Thereafter, as he worked his way across France and Belgium into Germany, he found himself dodging enemy soldiers, liberating concentration camps, dealing with angry and defeated POWs, and famished, humiliated civilians struggling to survive. 

Bill described what he saw and felt this way.

2 SOLDIERS AND A JEEP
“At night I would think about the poor GI’s family when they got the news of his death. I tried not to think too much about this “dead guy” job. It seemed to go on forever.
For the next month and a half I was really alone, not attached to any outfit. I found my own food, water, gas for the Jeep and slept alone beside the Jeep in an open field. I shaved with cold water in my helmet and used my Jeep mirror to see.
The Germans were always near. I was scared I would be killed or captured. “Who knows where I am? Who would tell my mother if I died?”
In the beginning it had been exciting being alone with the invasion action all around me. But now I have panic attacks and nightmares of the dead bodies waking me as I sleep in the open field alone.
Most GI’s have other soldiers around them to feel safety in numbers. I had no one. I can’t get their dead faces out of my mind. I wait for the bright morning sun to erase the terrible images.”

Fighting and winning war within

in Terry’s words

“He had many adventures to talk about later in his adult life. Growing up in the San Francisco Bay area he jokingly said he wanted to be the big fish in a smaller pond and made a tactical decision to move to Tulsa Oklahoma and to start up an ad agency “Ad Inc.” And as fate would have it, meet the love of his life Greta and started a family, and had three sons (Patrick, Tim, and Terrance)

A few years later he renovated a classic 1920’s Spanish style two-story house and built a large Art studio off the side, including a photography darkroom and printing stat camera in the basement.

Many years later he admitted suffering PTSD from his unwanted WWII memories, and found a way to deal with his pain by painting his military experiences “as seen through his own eyes”. And then later wrote and published a book full of illustrations. ”

SOLDIER LYING ON THE GROUND
“Later I forced myself to stop thinking about the “dead guys” experience and eventually forgot it.
62 years later, in 2006, when I applied for compensation for war injury during the Battle of the Bulge, the woman who interviewed me kept telling me I was leaving something out, something from my past.
I finally remembered after much writing about my remembered events in the 1944 and 1945 war period and was diagnosed with PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder).
I believe, the greatest event of the 20th century took place during the June 1944 D-Day Normandy Invasion. I am very proud of being a small part of that great historical event that will always be remembered.”

Quotes and drawings from Bill’s memoir, D-DAY VET REMEMBERS NORMANDY (copyright) used by permission of his wife

MAN IN A NORMANDY D-DAY HAT
Bill Hart, World War II veteran

 

“As I was starting my own career in Dallas TX, I would make trips home to see him and my mother as often as I could. And would always enjoy laughing together, plus having real man-to-man conversations at his favorite coffee place McDonald’s…haha.

I often think today how lucky I was to have had a father wise enough to save his own life by channeling his PTSD pain into paintings and sketches, (rather than) losing himself from unwelcome suffering.

He often expressed to me that he never feared death, but instead viewed it as yet another adventure. And looked forward to seeing his tough Irish Uncles and Father in heaven along with meeting Jesus.”

Terry Hart posted these memories of his father on the fifth anniversary of his father’s death, the day after Christmas 2014. My husband and I loved Bill and Greta and were honored to attend the graveside ceremony where a military honor attendant presented his family with the flag which draped Bill’s coffin.

 

 

POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER-PTSD

Once known as “shell shock” or “battle fatigue”, post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD, has become the most common post-military service disorder. Although it also occurs in civilians who experience severe trauma, it has  been defined, studied, and treated among current and former service members.

PTSD develops after exposure to or experiencing significant traumatic events such as interpersonal violence, death or  threat of death, serious accidents, disasters and combat.

There are 4 types of symptoms-

  • Intrusions, such as flashbacks, nightmares
  • Avoidance- isolating oneself from people and/or certain situations
  • Negative mood changes, such as irritability, anger and depression
  • Hypervigilance- being easily startled, always on edge

PTSD can lead to depression, anxiety, alcohol and substance abuse and suicide.

It is also frequently associated with traumatic brain injury (TBI)  and chronic pain.

The National Center for PTSD (Veterans Administration)  is dedicated to research and education on trauma and PTSD, working to assure that the latest research findings help those exposed to trauma. They offer extensive information and resources at this link

PTSD: National Center for PTSD

Exploring the HEART of Health

I’d love for you to follow this blog. I share information and inspiration to help you transform challenges into opportunities for learning and growth.

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