topic Re: Today is Flag Day in Community Chat

Today is Flag Day

lulu2 — Tue, 14 Jun 2016 17:23:15 GMT

This has been a favorite poem of mine since I was in elementary school.

The Flag Goes By

By Henry Holcomb Bennett


Hats off!
Along the street there comes
A blare of bugles, a ruffle of drums,
A flash of color beneath the sky:
Hats off!
The flag is passing by!

Blue and crimson and white it shines,
Over the steel-tipped, ordered lines.
Hats off!
The colors before us fly;
But more than the flag is passing by.

Sea-fights and land-fights, grim and great,
Fought to make and to save the State:
Weary marches and sinking ships;
Cheers of victory on dying lips;

Days of plenty and years of peace;
March of a strong land’s swift increase;
Equal justice, right and law,
Stately honor and reverend awe;

Sign of a nation, great and strong
To ward her people from foreign wrong:
Pride and glory and honor,—all
Live in the colors to stand or fall.

Hats off!
Along the street there comes
A blare of bugles, a ruffle of drums;
And loyal hearts are beating high:
Hats off!
The flag is passing by!

Re: Today is Flag Day

MacDUFF — Tue, 14 Jun 2016 17:16:42 GMT

Thanks for the beautiful poem...my husband will love it!

I love to see and hear our flag whipping in the wind.

She's a grand old flag!

Re: Today is Flag Day

bri20 — Tue, 14 Jun 2016 17:17:35 GMT

That's a beautiful poem.

Re: Today is Flag Day

FlyersGirl — Tue, 14 Jun 2016 17:33:02 GMT

My favorite:

Traditionalists say I was born of a woman’s hand — fashioned from bits of colored cloth by a seamstress in a small house in Philadelphia, a year after the new country was born.

Historians are less certain of my origin. Yet no one doubts my existence. I was created out of necessity to serve as the emblem of a people whose experiment in nationhood was as unique as the arrangement of my stars and stripes.

I have proved my adaptability to change. I’ve accommodated growth. I’ve stood up to time and troubles. I fluttered in the fall air with General Washington and his loyal French allies at Yorktown. My fabric was shredded by cannonballs from British frigates in the War of 1812. I was carried in triumph by Andy Jackson at New Orleans. The British could see me clearly in the mists of “dawn’s early light,” waving from the standards at Fort McHenry.

I‘ve witnessed turmoil and bitterness, even lost some of my glory in mid-century in a war between brothers, but I was restored as a nation’s emblem at Appomattox.

I traveled West with the new frontier. I flew from the headlamps of the Iron Horse in Utah. I was with the prospectors at Sutter’s Mill, with the cavalry against cattle rustlers, with the Rough Riders at San Juan Hill.

I crossed the Marne with the doughboys anxious to make the world safe for democracy. I was with brave GIs storming the beaches at Normandy. I was raised over a shell-pocked hilltop at Iwo Jima and I stood by the grim-faced negotiators at Panmunjom. I was on that last helicopter from Saigon and with the men and women of Operation Desert Storm.

I have been around in victory and defeat. I’ve seen pleasure and pain. I was raised over the rubble of the World Trade Center and at the Pentagon. I’ve been folded smartly by soldiers and handed to weeping widows. I’ve covered the coffins of those who’ve served country and community.

I also decorate bandstands and concert halls. I am saluted in parades, in schools, and at ball parks.

I am part of political campaigns, high holidays and ice cream socials. I fly from skyscrapers and bungalows. I’ve been to the moon and the ocean floor.

I am everywhere my people are. I am saluted and, occasionally, scorned. I have been held with pride and I have been ridiculed, because I am everything my people are: proud, angry, happy, sad, vengeful, argumentative, ambitious, indifferent.

I was created to serve a people in struggle and a government in change. There are now more stars in my blue field than there were in the beginning and, if need be, there’s room for more.

But those red and white stripes remain as they’ve always remained: clearly visible through the struggle — the symbol of the “land of the free and the home of the brave.”

I am your past. I am your future. I am your flag.

by Bob Nelson
KYW Newsradio 1060 Flag Day is June 14th, Independence Day is July 4th.
Don’t forget to fly your flag.

Re: Today is Flag Day

MaggieMack — Tue, 14 Jun 2016 17:40:51 GMT

Re: Today is Flag Day

meallen616 — Tue, 14 Jun 2016 17:45:41 GMT

Re: Today is Flag Day

GinaV24 — Tue, 14 Jun 2016 20:43:23 GMT

Great posts!

Re: Today is Flag Day

AKgirl2 — Wed, 15 Jun 2016 00:38:28 GMT

Good night old friend...🇺🇸 See you tomorrow!