Published: June 11, 2008 01:37 pm            

A salute to Flag Day

“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”



Can you remember how proud you were the first time you finally recited the Pledge of Allegiance from memory? When was the last time? Those simple 31 words combine to honor America and at the same time exhibit to the world that we are united, as a people and as a country.

Saturday, we celebrate Flag Day in honor of the adoption of the Stars and Stripes as the national flag by the Second Continental Congress on June 14, 1777. The new flag symbolizes the new nation, the United States of America. No other symbol is capable of evoking such a range of emotions.

Johnny Cash sang “Ragged Old Flag,” and if you’ve never listened to the words, they are quite moving:



“I walked through a county courthouse square,

On a park bench an old man was sitting there.

I said, ‘Your old courthouse is kinda run down.’

He said, ‘Naw, it’ll do for our little town.’

I said, ‘Your flagpole has leaned a little bit,

And that’s a ragged old flag you got hanging on it.”



“He said, ‘Have a seat,’ and I sat down.

‘Is this the first time you’ve been to our little town?’

I said, ‘I think it is.’ He said, ‘I don’t like to brag,

But we’re kinda proud of that ragged old flag.’”



“You see, we got a little hole in that flag there

When Washington took it across the Delaware.

And it got powder-burned the night Francis Scott Key

Sat watching it writing ‘Oh Say Can You See.’

And it got a bad rip in New Orleans

With Packingham and Jackson tuggin’ at its seams.”



“And it almost fell at the Alamo

Beside the Texas flag, but she waved on through.

She got cut with a sword at Chancellorsville,

And she got cut again at Shiloh Hill.

There was Robert E. Lee, Beauregard, and Bragg,

And the south wind blew hard on that ragged old flag.”



“On Flanders Field in World War I

She got a big hole from a Bertha gun.

She turned blood red in World War II.

She hung limp and low by the time it was through.

She was in Korea and Vietnam.

She went where she was sent by her Uncle Sam.”



“She waved from our ships upon the briny foam,

And now they’ve about quit waving her back here at home.

In her own good land she’s been abused —

She’s been burned, dishonored, denied and refused.”



“And the government for which she stands

It is scandalized throughout the land.

And she’s getting threadbare and wearing thin,

But she’s in good shape for the shape she’s in.

‘Cause she’s been through the fire before,

And I believe she can take a whole lot more.”



“So we raise her up every morning,

Take her down every night.

We don’t let her touch the ground,

And we fold her up right.

On second thought I do like to brag,

‘Cause I’m mighty proud of that ragged old flag.”



Saturday, pause and think about the flag as a symbol of our nation and our freedom. Long may “Old Glory” wave.



Bill Jourdain is chairman of the Dalton-Whitfield Chamber of Commerce executive board.

        

• Click to discuss this story with other readers on our forums.