''Shoot if you must, this old gray head, But spare your country's flag.''

                                          -- From Barbara Fritchie,
                                         by John Greenleaf Whittier

 BY FRED TASKER

 Not since the 1960s and '70s, perhaps, when the Vietnam war split the nation into equally passionate supporters and dissenters, has the flag taken on such disparate symbolism. In the dozen days since the removal of Elian Gonzalez from his Miami family, demonstrators on opposing sides of the bitter custody case have brandished the flags of the United States and Cuba as signs of pride and protest, identity and shame.

 The disagreement took many forms. In the hours after the 6-year-old was seized by federal agents, demonstrators who filled Little Havana's streets stirred controversy simply by carrying so many Cuban flags -- even though many carried American flags as well.

 What did it all mean? Cuban Americans say waving the flag of their homeland is a means of expressing their unity on the issue. Hector Rodriguez of Miami, who was driving up Southwest Eighth Street Monday with three Cuban flags and one American flag fluttering from his car, puts it this way:

 ''It's the only symbol we have to show that we're united in supporting Elian. It's not a symbol of disrespect for America. Look at how many American flags we had out there too.''

 HEATED EMOTIONS

 But the actions of some have generated more heat, including:

  Repeated instances of carrying the U.S. flag upside down, a traditional signal of distress, but now more often a sign of discontent.

  One or two instances of burning the American flag.

  At least one instance in which some protesters started to damage the Stars and Stripes, but were stopped by other protesters who wrestled the flag away to safety.

 The incidents made many angry enough to respond with strong words and a counter-protest.

 ''I saw a man take the flag and he had it upside down,'' said Albert Tresvant, of Opa-locka. ''It bothered me. Those people came over here and we gave them food and subsidies, and they do this.

 ''When I was growing up in Liberty City, we had to raise the flag every day at school. My teacher would have given me the devil if I'd dropped the flag or even let it touch the ground.''

 Many of the 2,500 or so at Saturday's counter-protest in South Miami-Dade, carrying hundreds of American flags and a scattering of Confederate flags, expressed similar emotions.

 'SIGN' LANGUAGE

 Their signs read:

  ''We don't burn your flag; don't burn ours.''

  ''Fly it with pride or don't fly it at all.''

  ''One country, one flag.''

 The incidents provided political hay for Cuban leader Fidel Castro, who boasted at a Havana May Day rally: ''No American flag has been trampled or burned on the streets [in Cuba],'' according to Agence France-Presse.

 The strong reactions raise questions about how the flags were treated -- and the very personal interpretations of those actions.

 By flying the U.S. flag upside down, ''the Cubans wanted to send a message that they felt betrayed by the Clinton Administration,'' says Jaime Suchlicki, director of the University of Miami's Institute for Cuba and Cuban-American Studies. ''It's parallel in their minds with John Kennedy and the Bay of Pigs. He let down the Cubans then. And it happened in a major way for a second time with what they did with Elian.''

 He adds: ''I know it bothers people. But you have to put it in context. Cubans have acted fairly normally compared with other groups -- blacks in Los Angeles, Americans in Seattle. There have been a lot of very violent demonstrations in the past two or three decades.''

 THE LAW

 What does the law say? The U.S. Flag Code, a set of rules adopted by Congress in 1923 and modified as recently as 1976, says: ''[The flag] is to be flown upside down only as a distress signal.''

 ''But the Flag Code has no force of law; it's just a resolution of Congress,'' says Whitney Smith, flag historian, director of the Flag Research Center in Winchester, Mass., and author of the flag entry in the World Book Encyclopedia.

 Historically, Smith said, instances of the flag being flown upside down to signal distress -- as it was in one Colorado ski camp hit by an avalanche -- are very rare. Doing it as a protest is much more prevalent. It happened dozens of times during Vietnam war protests, he said -- and later in rallies opposing school integration.

 Burning the flag clearly is a more offensive act. One that appears to have happened in recent demonstrations, but -- contrary to some rumors -- very rarely.

 ''We have no reports of burning,'' says Miami Police spokesman Bill Schwartz.

 FLAG-BURNING

 ''One of my reporters did see an American flag burned,'' says Shannon High-Bassalik, news director of WFOR-CBS 4. The reporter, who asked that her name not be used, confirmed seeing a small group of men burn an American flag at an intersection near Elian's house on the night after he was seized. ''And there were people around them saying in Spanish, 'Please don't do that,' '' the reporter said.

 Herald photographer Chuck Fadely snapped a dramatic picture on that fateful Saturday of several protesters wrestling with a U.S. flag, one side trying to shred it, the other protecting it.

 Again, what is the law?

 ''The Supreme Court has made it absolutely clear that burning the flag is protected by the Constitution,'' says Smith, the flag historian.

 But he added: ''It doesn't mean people accept it. In America, the flag is like a religion . . . It's what binds us all together, gives us a concrete focus.''

 It's why the U.S. Marine Corps Memorial in Washington, depicting the raising of the flag over Iwo Jima's Mount Suribachi, is so important, he said; why our national anthem is The Star Spangled Banner.

 Flags can be very sensitive subjects, says Terry James Prewitt, a University of West Florida anthropology professor and expert in semiotics, the study of the meanings of symbols.

 PUSHING THE BUTTON

 ''Flags can take on whatever meaning we want to give them. A lot of people believe the flag should be treated with the greatest respect. If it isn't, there's a feeling of a loss of control. Persons using the flag in that way must be aware that they are pushing that button.''

 Nobody understands that better than Jose Basulto, head of Brothers to the Rescue and an active protester in the Elian case.

 ''That [the burning] was regrettable. It's very disrespectful and demeaning to the flag,'' he said.

 Some of the South Dade counter-protesters questioned how South Florida Cubans can identify with the same flag that flies over communist Cuba.

 ''This is the historical Cuban flag,'' Suchlicki explained.

 Many Americans are upset that the Supreme Court has ruled that burning the flag is constitutionally protected free speech. In March, the U.S. Senate fell a few votes short, for the fourth time in 11 years, of approving a constitutional amendment to give Congress the power to ban the desecration of the American flag.

 At the South Dade counter-rally, the scattering of Confederate flags was controversial, too.

 ''I saw that flag, with a big, fat guy in a car,'' says Chris Fulmer, a demonstrator there. ''I went over and asked him to put it back in the car. He asked why. I said because that's the picture that will get in the paper. He just laughed at me. Sure enough, it was in the paper.''

 The counter-demonstrators were doing something else that would have been just as controversial 25 years ago. Several were wearing U.S.-flag-pattern clothing: boxer shorts, handkerchiefs on heads, even a bikini-top-and-shorts combination.

 Says the Flag Code: ''The flag should not be used as part of a costume . . . ''

 ''It shows how meanings can change,'' says Prewitt, the semiotics expert. ''In the Vietnam era, using the flag as the basis of clothing was considered highly improper. Now you can go to any big department store and buy it in swim trunks.''

 Herald researcher Gay Nemeti contributed to this report.

                     Copyright 2000 Miami Herald