Oh Say Can You Still See — at 250?
“Imagine what our country could accomplish if we started working together as one people under one God saluting one American flag.”
“Let it be borne on the flag under which we rally in every exigency, that we have one country, one constitution, one destiny.” —Daniel Webster (1837)
This Sunday, 14 June, is both Flag Day and Army Day.
The 250th anniversaries of the founding of our historic Armed Service branches was in 2025: U.S. Army (14 June), U.S. Navy (13 October), and U.S. Marine Corps (10 November), all of them born in 1775.
But pause with me for a moment to contemplate the history of our flag.
Though earlier Patriot flags had been pieced together, it was on 14 June 1777 — more than two years after the first shots of the American Revolution at Lexington and Concord, and almost a year after the signing of our Declaration of Independence — that the Second Continental Congress adopted the familiar Betsy Ross 13-star banner as our American flag.
As we approach the 250th anniversary of our nation, originating with the signing of our Declaration of Independence on 4 July 1776, our flag has become the beacon of the American Liberty embodied in that Declaration and its irrevocable assertion of the unalienable rights of man, as later enshrined in our Republic’s Constitution.
Our flag is a symbol of hope for all people who embrace these eternal words: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed — that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
We, the current generation of American Patriots, honor the history of our national flag and display it with pride. Those who denigrate our flag — and by extension our nation — deeply offend the honorable service of all who have served under its banner, and their families.
More than 1.3 million American Patriots have given their lives under our flag, another 1.4 million have been wounded in combat, and tens of millions more have served honorably, surviving without physical wounds but many with wounds unseen.
Of that service and sacrifice, my friend and Medal of Honor recipient Britt Slabinsky notes: “Comfort did not buy your freedom. Sacrifice did. It was forged in the fires of the crucible, shaped by the hands of those who fought, bled, and died for it. … Too often without recognition. … They were our sons. Our daughters. Our brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, friends, and neighbors. They followed the strength of their convictions and paid for it with every dream they would ever have. … Never let comfort make you forget the cost.”
Our flag is of such importance as the symbol of our nation that our national anthem, penned by Francis Scott Key during the War of 1812, is all about it. On 14 September 1814, while being detained on a British ship, Key witnessed the 25-hour British Navy bombardment of Fort McHenry above Baltimore harbor. It was “by the dawn’s early light” the next morning that Key could see the Fort’s large garrison flag (30 by 42 feet) flying high. Originally a poem, “Defence of Fort M'Henry” was popularized as “The Star-Spangled Banner” and on 3 March 1931, by joint resolution of Congress, it became our national anthem.
Our flag has flown high above hundreds of battles since the War of 1812, and perhaps the most iconic raising was on Mount Suribachi, Iwo Jima, on 23 February 1945. On the other side of the world, it flew over the beaches of Normandy on D-Day. It was raised over the shores of Inchon and the jungles of Vietnam. It flew on the Moon with Apollo 11 and subsequent missions. It was raised above the Ground Zero rubble in New York City after the 9/11 attack on our nation. It covers the caskets of our war dead.
Shamefully, it has also been used as a political rag to advance political agendas — most recently by the Biden/Harris regime regime, which repeatedly ordered American flags to half-staff to align with their political race-hustling or gun control agendas. Five times in his first six months in office, Biden ordered flags to half-staff after firearm deaths and continued to do so over the next three and a half years.
Of course, such proclamations are for federal installations only — though, unfortunately, states, local governments, and many private organizations reflexively follow those orders.
President Donald Trump has consistently advocated respect for our national banner: “Imagine what our country could accomplish if we started working together as one people under one God saluting one American flag. … We all salute, with pride, the same American Flag. And we are equal — totally equal — in the eyes of Almighty God. … There is no global anthem, no global currency, no certificate of global citizenship. We pledge allegiance to one flag, and that flag is the American flag.”
That resonates with words from the famous poet Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., who declared, “One flag, one land, one heart, one hand, One Nation evermore!”
There are annual days when flags should be lowered over federal installations: Peace Officers Memorial Day (15 May, sunrise to sunset); Memorial Day (last Monday in May, sunrise to 1200); Patriot Day (11 September, sunrise to sunset); National Firefighters Memorial Day (first Sunday in October, sunrise to sunset); and Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day (7 December, sunrise to sunset). It is appropriate and fitting that private organizations also honor these annual days by lowering flags, most notably Memorial Day.
(I invite you to read more on our site about proper flag etiquette and protocol, and the history of our flag.)
Some other memorable quotes worth repeating:
“We identify the flag with almost everything we hold dear on earth, peace, security, liberty, our family, our friends, our home. … But when we look at our flag and behold it emblazoned with all our rights, we must remember that it is equally a symbol of our duties. Every glory that we associate with it is the result of duty done.” —Calvin Coolidge
“When we honor our flag, we honor what we stand for as a nation — freedom, equality, justice, and hope.” —Ronald Reagan
And there is the poem “Ragged Old Flag” by Johnny Cash, which you can listen to here.
Of our flag, the 19th-century clergyman and abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher wrote:
If one asks the meaning of our flag, I say it means just what Concord and Lexington meant, what Bunker Hill meant. It means the whole glorious Revolutionary War. It means all that the Declaration of Independence meant. It means all that the Constitution of our people, organizing for justice, for liberty, and for happiness, meant.
Under this banner rode Washington and his armies. … It waved on the highlands at West Point. … This banner streamed in light over the soldiers’ heads at Valley Forge. … It crossed the waters rolling with ice at Trenton.
Our flag carries American ideas, American history, and American feelings. Beginning with the colonies, and coming down to our time, in its sacred heraldry, in its glorious insignia, it has gathered and stored chiefly this supreme idea: Divine right of liberty in man. Every color means liberty. Every thread means liberty. Every form of star and beam or stripe of light means liberty. Not lawlessness, not license, but organized, institutional liberty — liberty through law, and laws for liberty.
This American flag was the safeguard of liberty. Not an atom of crown was allowed to go into its insignia. Not a symbol of authority in the ruler was permitted to go into it. It was an ordinance of liberty by the people, for the people. That it meant, that it means, and, by the blessing of God, that it shall mean to the end of time.
While the first verse of “The Star-Spangled Banner” is familiar to most Americans, it is the fourth and final verse that speaks most directly to the humbling legacy of American Patriots, who have stood in harm’s way since the earliest skirmishes of the American Revolution:
O! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust.”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
“In God is our trust” was shortened to “In God We Trust” and first appeared on U.S. coins in 1864. In 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed it into law as our national motto.
The first stanza of our national anthem concludes: “Oh, say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave, O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
The answer to that question rests with you and me.
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Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis
Pro Deo et Libertate — 1776
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