Today, after the most partisan day of the year, here's an idea we can all get -behind.
A few years ago, Joe D'Entremont saw an empty seat at a racetrack in Bristol, Tenn. It was left empty on purpose, a symbolic way to remember the 92,000 American service members who since World War I went missing in action or were prisoners of war who didn't make it home.
D'Entremont — president of the Massa-chusetts chapter of Rolling -Thunder, a group dedicated to making the government accountable for POWs and MIAs — looked at the empty seat in -Tennessee and said, "Why not here?"
But you have to walk before you can run. D'Entremont noticed that the color guard that marched onto the field at Gillette Stadium during New England Patriots games didn't include a POW/MIA flag.
So he called up the Patriots and offered them a flag, and they readily agreed. That flag is out there at every game now. The Red Sox started flying a POW/MIA flag at Fenway Park.
If you look around, there are POW/MIA flags at a lot of public events now. Thank you, Rolling Thunder.
D'Entremont was grateful, but he went looking for a bigger venue. On Friday, the Patriots will unveil a seat that will be kept empty at Gillette on Sunday, Veterans Day, and every day after that.
There's more. D'Entremont's buddy, Dennis Moschella, president of Veterans Assisting Veterans, got talking last summer about putting up POW/MIA tables in restaurants.
D'Entremont is hoping for momentum. What the Patriots are doing this week sets an example. The standard has been set in restaurants.
What if every bar in Boston, in -Massachusetts, in New England and across the country left an empty seat or table?
From that empty seat at the racetrack in Tennessee, Joe D'Entremont is trying to think beyond stadiums and restaurants and bars.
He's thinking all sorts of public places, places where people go and people talk, where parents talk to their kids. Parks. Schools. Beaches.
"Think about the conversations," D'Entremont said.
"I'd bet that most Americans wouldn't have any idea that 92,000 service members were POWs or MIAs who never made it home from the wars of the last century. Think about parents talking to their kids about the empty seat. Guys were left behind. They can't speak for themselves, so we have to speak for them."
Kevin Cullen writes for the Boston Globe.