Hey Colin Kaepernick, I’d like to introduce you to a few men.

Meet Sgt. William Carney of the 54th Massachusetts Colored Infantry who was among the brave men attacking Fort Wagner in South Carolina during the Civil War. Carney saw the color bearer ahead of him struck down by Confederate bullets. Already injured, Carney would not let the flag fall to the ground, and he charged forward directly into enemy fire to retrieve it.

The enemy shot him up relentlessly, but Carney got to the red, white and blue and carried it high, all the way back to his regiment.

Carney, who was injured and by all rights should have been dead, cried, “Boys, I only did my duty. The flag never touched the ground.”

Carney became the first black Medal of Honor recipient.

49ers quarterback Kaepernick, who is paid nearly $20 million a year for his ability to play a game, of course recently refused to stand for the American flag. Because of the racism he says it symbolizes. Yesterday, he doubled down, saying he’ll keep doing it, insisting he “did what’s right” when he disrespected the American flag.

Meet Stephan Ross. Ross was a 14-year-old Jewish boy from Poland. He and his brother had lost everyone and everything by the time American soldiers arrived to free him from Dachau.

A soldier hugged Ross and gave him his rations. The young boy broke down and cried. The American gave him a cloth to wipe his tears. It was a small American flag. It was Stephan’s only possession and he would treasure it forever.

In 2012, Ross, by then an accomplished psychologist in Boston, managed to meet the children and grandchildren of the man, the late Steve Sattler, who had shown him such kindness, and Ross presented them with the very thing that signaled love and hope to him, an American flag. Ross went on to spearhead the building of the New England Holocaust Museum.

Meet Glen Doherty, a hero who sacrificed his own life to save others during the terrorist attack in Benghazi. After Doherty’s death his friends planted a little American flag in the sand on a beach in California. They poured his ashes into the sea, yelling, “I love you, Glen.” In his hometown of Winchester, the funeral procession route was lined with grateful townspeople holding flags, out of the schools poured students to pay respects to the man, holding high Old Glory.

At the end of the funeral a U.S. Navy sailor presented Doherty’s heartbroken mother with the folded flag.

That flag that you refuse to honor is the strongest symbol for good in the history of Earth, Colin. Men like William, Stephan and Glen — who have endured more than you ever will — have made it so.

You are not worthy of it.