I AM THE FLAG OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA


I am the flag of the United States of America.
My name is Old Glory.
I fly atop the world's tallest buildings.
I stand watch in America's halls of justice.
I fly majestically over institutions of learning.
I stand guard with power in the world.
Look up ... and see me.

I stand for peace, honor, truth and justice.
I stand for freedom.
I am confident.
I am arrogant.
I am proud.

When I am flown with my fellow banners,
my head is a little higher,
my colors a little truer.

I bow to no one!
I am recognized all over the world.
I am worshipped - I am saluted.
I am loved - I am revered.
I am respected - and I am feared.

I have fought in every battle of every war
for more then 200 years.
I was flown at Valley Forge, Gettysburg,
Shiloh and Appamatox.
I was there at San Juan Hill,
the trenches of France,
in the Argonne Forest, Anzio, Rome
and the beaches of Normandy, Guam.
Okinawa, Korea and KheSan, Saigon, Vietnam know me,
I was there.
I led my troops,
I was dirty, battleworn and tired,
but my soldiers cheered me
And I was proud.
I have been burned, torn and trampled
on the streets of countries I have helped set free.
It does not hurt, for I am invincible.

I have been soiled upon, burned, torn
and trampled on the streets of my country.
And when it's by those whom I've served in battle - it hurts.
But I shall overcome - for I am strong.

I have slipped the bonds of Earth
and stood watch over the uncharted frontiers of space
from my vantage point on the moon.
I have borne silent witness
to all of America's finest hours.
But my finest hours are yet to come.

When I am torn into strips
and used as bandages
for my wounded comrades on the battlefield,
When I am flown at half-mast to honor my soldier,
Or when I lie in the trembling arms
of a grieving parent
at the grave of their fallen son or daughter,
I am proud.

MY NAME IS OLD GLORY LONG MAY I WAVE.
DEAR GOD IN  HEAVEN LONG MAY I WAVE

PLEASE FORWARD MY MESSAGE TO ALL WHO
STILL LOVE AND RESPECT ME,
THAT I MAY FLY PROUDLY FOR
ANOTHER TWO HUNDRED YEARS.

Our Flag


 Does the First Amendment give us the right to
 desecrate the American flag?

 Or is the flag a sacred symbol of our nation,
 deserving protection by law?

 Tough call?

 "The Solution"

 For those who want to light Old Glory on fire, stomp
 all over it, or spit on it to make some sort of
 "statement," I say let them do it. But under one
 condition: they MUST get permission from three
 sponsors.

 First, you need permission of a war veteran....Perhaps
 a Marine who fought at Iwo Jima? The American flag was
 raised over Mount Surabachi upon the bodies of
 thousands of dead buddies. Each night spent on Iwo
 Jima meant half of everyone you knew would be dead
 tomorrow, a coin flip away from a bloody end upon a
 patch of sand your mother couldn't find on a map.

 Or maybe ask a Vietnam vet who spent years tortured in
 a small, filthy cell unfit for a dog. Or a Korean War
 soldier who helped rescue half a nation from
 Communism,
 or a Desert Storm warrior who repulsed a bloody
 dictator from raping and pillaging an innocent
 country. That flag represented your mother and father,
 your sister and brother, your friends, neighbors, and
 everyone at home. I wonder what they would say if
 someone asked them permission to burn the American
 flag?

 Second, you need a signature from an immigrant. Their
 brothers and sisters may still languish in their
 native land, often under tyranny, poverty and misery.
 Or maybe they died on the way here, never to touch our
 shores. Some have seen friends and family get tortured
 and murdered by their own government for daring to do
 things we take for granted every day. For those who
 risked everything simply for the chance to become an
 American, what kind of feelings do they have for the
 flag when they Pledge Allegiance the first time? Go to
 a naturalization ceremony and see for yourself, the
 tears of pride, the thanks, the love and respect of
 this nation, as they finally embrace the American flag
 as their own. Ask one of them if it would be OK to
 burn the flag or spit on it.

 Third, you should get the signature of a mother. Not
 just any mother. You need a mother of someone who gave
 their life for America. It doesn't even have to be
 from a war. It could be a cop. Or a fireman. Maybe a
 Secret Service or NSA agent. Then again, it could be a
 common foot soldier as well. When that son or daughter
 is laid to rest, their family is given one gift by the
 American people; an American flag. Go on. I dare you!
 Ask that mother if you can spit on her flag. Away from
 family, away from the precious shores of home, in the
 face of overwhelming odds and often in the face of
 death, the American flag inspires those who believe in
 the American dream, the American promise, the American
 vision...

 Americans who don't appreciate the flag don't
 appreciate this nation. And those who appreciate this
 nation appreciate the American flag. So if you want to
 desecrate the American flag, before you spit on it or
 before you burn it, I have a simple request. Just ask
 permission. Not from the Constitution. Not from some
 obscure law. Not from the politicians or the pundits.
 Instead, ask those who have defended our nation so
 that we may be free today. Ask those who struggled to
 reach our shores so that they may join us in the
 American dream. And ask those who clutch a flag in
 place of their sacrificed sons and daughters, given to
 this nation so that others may be free. For we cannot
 ask permission from those who died wishing they could,
 just once ... or once again ... see, touch or kiss the
 flag that stands for our nation, the United States of
 America ... the greatest nation on earth.

 Go ahead. Ask. I dare you!

"THAT RAGGED OLD FLAG"
(Author Unknown)

WHAT IS A VET?

Some veterans bear visible signs of their service: a missing limb,
a jagged scar, a certain look in the eye.

Others may carry the evidence inside them: a pin holding a bone
together, a piece of shrapnel in the leg - or perhaps another sort
of inner steel: the soul's ally forged in the refinery of adversity.

Except in parades, however, the men and women who have kept
America safe wear no badge or emblem. You can't tell a vet just
by looking.

What is a vet?
He is the cop on the beat who spent six months in Saudi Arabia
sweating two gallons a day making sure the armored personnel carriers didn't run out of fuel.

He is the barroom loudmouth, dumber than five wooden planks, whose
overgrown frat-boy behavior is outweighed a hundred times in the cosmic
scales by four hours of exquisite bravery near the 38th parallel.

She - or he - is the nurse who fought against futility and went to
sleep sobbing every night for two solid years in Da Nang.

He is the POW who went away one person and came back another - or didn't come back AT ALL.

He is the TRADOC drill instructor who has never seen combat - but
has saved countless lives by turning slouchy, no-account rednecks and gang members into soldiers, and teaching them to watch each other's backs.

He is the parade - riding Legionnaire who pins on his ribbons and
medals with a prosthetic hand.

He is the career logistician who watches the ribbons and medals
pass him by.

He is the three anonymous heroes in The Tomb Of The Unknowns,
whose presence at the Arlington National Cemetery must forever preserve
the memory of all the anonymous heroes whose valor dies unrecognized with them on the battlefield or in the ocean's sunless deep.

He is the old guy bagging groceries at the supermarket - palsied
now and aggravatingly slow - who helped liberate a Nazi death camp and who wishes all day long that his wife were still alive to hold him
when the nightmares come.

He is an ordinary and yet an extraordinary human being - a person
who offered some of his life's most vital years in the service of his
country, and who sacrificed his ambitions so others would not have to
sacrifice theirs.

He is a soldier and a savior and a sword against the darkness, and
he is nothing more than the finest, greatest testimony on behalf
of the finest, greatest nation ever known.

So remember, each time you see someone who has served our country, just lean over and say Thank You. That's all most people need, and in most cases it will mean more than any medals they could have been awarded or were awarded.

Two little words that mean a lot, "THANK YOU".


Remember November 11th is Veterans Day
"It is the soldier, not the reporter,
Who has given us freedom of the press.
It is the soldier not the poet,
Who has given us freedom of speech.
It is the soldier, not the campus organizer,
Who has given us the freedom to demonstrate.
It is the soldier, Who salutes the flag,
Who serves beneath the flag,
And whose coffin is draped by the flag,
Who allows the protrestor to burn the flag."

Father Denis Edward O'Brien
USMC


There is no FAIR, there is no FREE and there is no EASY.
You never get what you don't pay for -- and money is seldom the
payment.

You've probably seen the bumper sticker somewhere along the road. It depicts an American Flag, accompanied by the words "These colors don't run."

I'm always glad to see this, because it reminds me of an incident from my confinement in North Vietnam at the Hao Lo POW Camp, or the "Hanoi Hilton," as it became known. Then a Major in the U.S. Air Force, I had been captured and imprisoned from 1967 to 1973. Our treatment had been frequently brutal.

After three years, however, the beatings and torture became less frequent. During the last year, we were allowed outside most days for a couple of minutes to bathe. We showered by drawing water from a concrete tank with a homemade bucket.

One day as we al1 stood by the tank, stripped of our clothes, a young Naval pilot named Mike Christian found the remnants of a handkerchief in a gutter that ran under the prison wall. Mike managed to sneak the grimy rag into our cell and began fashioning it into a flag.

Over time we all loaned him a little soap, and he spent days cleaning the material. We helped by scrounging and stealing bits and pieces of anything he could use. At night, under his mosquito net, Mike worked on the flag. He made red and blue from groundup roof tiles and tiny amounts of ink and painted the colors onto the cloth with watery rice glue. Using thread from his own blanket and a homemade bamboo needle, he sewed on stars.

Early in the morning a few days later, when the guards were not alert, he whispered loudly from the back of our cell, "Hey gang, look here." He proudly held up this tattered piece of cloth, waving it as if in a breeze. If you used your imagination, you could tell it was supposed to be an American flag.

When he raised that smudgy fabric, we automatically stood straight and saluted, our chests puffing out, and more than a few eyes had tears.

About once a week the guards would strip us, run us outside and go through our clothing. During one of those shakedowns, they found Mike's flag. We all knew what would happen.

That night they came for him. Night interrogations were always the worst. They opened the cell door and pulled Mike out. We could hear the beginning of the torture before they even had him in the torture cell. They beat him most of the night. About daylight they pushed what was left of him back through the cell door. He was badly broken; even his voice was gone.

Within two weeks, despite the danger, Mike scrounged another piece of cloth and began another flag. The Stars and Stripes, our national symbol, was worth the sacrifice to him. Now, whenever I see the flag, I think of Mike and the morning he first waved that tattered emblem of a nation. It was then, thousands of miles from home in a lonely prison cell, that he showed us what it is to be truly free.

"It was a real privilege to have lived with him. He was always coming up with ideas. He always had lists of ten things he wanted to do, ten things he wanted to see, ten things he wanted to have. He was a very fine young man," said Leo.

"And he was always a patriot," according to Leo. When President Carter granted amnesty to all those who avoided military service, Mike was hurt and angry.

"He took all the medals he had been awarded, drove to the White House, double parked and threw them all over the fence."

(Editor's Note: Mike returned in 1973 with honor and was later killed in an apartment fire.)