Flag Day: Just a Piece of Cloth?

Flag Day: Just a Piece of Cloth?
by Rachel Keller

Every day for years, I stood at attention and recited this pledge, first as a student, and then later as a teacher. But what is so important about the American flag that we pledge our allegiance to it? Isn't it just a piece of cloth?

According to Grolier's Encyclopedia (1993), "a flag is a piece of colored fabric that serves as a symbol or a signaling device....[Flags] express numerous kinds of messages--protection, victory, challenge, submission, pride, honor, threat, loyalty, and hope....The importance of a flag lies in its symbolism rather than in its material or size" (p. 315).

Today, each country, territory, state, and city has its own flag. Even the many departments of the United States Government have their own flag. But in 1777, there was no United States flag. That year, on June 14th, the Continental Congress adopted the Stars and Stripes: a flag with 13 alternating red and white stripes and 13 white stars in a blue field representing a new constellation. Although many believe that Betsy Ross created the first flag, no evidence exists to prove this.

Concerning our flag, Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) said that "a thoughtful mind when it sees a nation's flag, sees not the flag, but the nation itself. And whatever may be its symbols, its insignia, he reads chiefly in the flag, the government, the principles, the truths, the history that belong to the nation that sets it forth. The American flag has been a symbol of Liberty and men rejoiced in it."

Francis Scott Key, a Maryland lawyer and poet, was so moved at seeing the Stars and Stripes waving after the British shelling of Baltimore's Fort McHenry in 1814 that he wrote the words to The Star Spangled Banner, which in 1931, became the national anthem of the United States.

President Woodrow Wilson, the 28th President of the United States proclaimed the first Flag Day in 1916. In his Flag Day Address on June 14, 1917, he stated that "this flag, which we honor and under which we serve, is the emblem of our unity, our power, our thought and purpose as a nation. It has no other character than that which we give it from generation to generation....Though silent, it speaks to us--speaks to us of the past, of the men and women who went before us, and of the records they wrote upon it."

The United States flag is not just a piece of cloth. The flag represents who we are. It is a symbol of our freedoms for which our forefathers have so valiantly fought. Therefore, we respect it. We proudly stand and salute this flag of the United States of America. Long may it wave.

Psalm 33:12 "Happy is the people whose God is the Lord."

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