June 14th. Flag Day. It’s one of those days which comes and goes and if you know you know. Little did Congress know that day in 1777 that the flag they adopted would become such a profound symbol for freedom throughout the world. Fought over, bled over, at times misunderstood, other times a beacon of hope for the oppressed; one day those stars and stripes even reaching to the moon.

Through out military history, flags are everything. Lose the flag and you lose the battle. From the Romans to the present day, the stories of bravery and sacrifice for “the flag” are countless. During our own Civil War, I can think of at least half a dozen stories from both sides where life was willingly given for a scrap of cloth.

“The Iron Brigade” by Don Troiani (one of my very favorite artists)

At the battle of Gettysburg, a 21 year old Colonel in the Confederate Army picked up the colors after 12 standard bearers before him had been either killed or wounded. Colonel Burgwyn became the 13th. His last words, “The Lord’s Will be done."

During the same battle, a standard bearer on the Union side was captured and spent over 500 days as a Prisoner of War. To prevent the flag (riddled with 72 bullet holes) from being taken from him, Sgt. Sheppard wrapped it around his body under his worn clothing, and kept it successfully hidden until his release at the end of the war. In later years he is reported to have said that his farm and the flag were the two things he valued most. And he would give up the farm before the flag.

Since that summer day in 1777, there have been numerous iconic paintings and photos taken which represent the meaning behind our flag. There’s the Spirit of 76’ painting, Washington crossing the Delaware, The Flag raising at Iwo Jima, the Moon landing, Raising the Flag at Ground Zero, and many more. Beautiful and awe-inspiring images.

Yet despite it’s glorious history, the Stars and Stripes continue go in and out of fashion.

In the classic American biopic Yankee Doodle Dandy, Jimmy Cagney (who portrays the brilliant playwright and composer George M. Cohan) gives this line:

“It seems whenever we get too high hat and too sophisticated for flag-waving some thug nation comes along and decides we're a pushover all ready to be blackjacked. And it isn't long before we're looking up mighty anxiously to be sure the flag is still waving over us.”

A number of years ago, a Navy veteran who had served aboard a carrier in WWII related stories from the 60s and 70s when just wearing an American Flag pin was considered offensive. One morning his office had been trashed because of it. At the time it was hard for me to imagine anything like that. But lately I feel like we’re trying on that “high hat” for size.

I’m not blind to America’s faults. She certainly has many. However, I am too aware of the cost it took to get us here and the Divine hand of Providence that guided us through the numerous ups and downs the last 245 years, to take something like the flag for granted. A symbol for Freedom, Emancipation, and Liberty.

So here's to our nation: she's young, she's growing too fast, she makes a lot of mistakes, but somehow she does manage to keep her people free. May she always.
- Ella Bishop “Cheers for Miss Bishop”

Here’s my final anecdote. It’s a story I have shared in the past, but will always be one of my favorites.

The Bombs Bursting in Air

Many years ago at a Marine Reunion in San Antonio I met Colonel Tom Kalus, an epic Marine who had participated in two of the greatest moments in Marine Corps history: the Battle of Iwo Jima in World War Two and the Chosin Reservoir Campaign during the Korean War.

Both events were brutal and at high cost. But they were part of a greater effort to return the freedom and liberty’s of those who it had been ruthlessly stripped.

When I first met the Colonel , upon introducing myself as “Liberty” - my birth name - he asked, “Do you remember the lines in the National Anthem - about the 'rockets red glare and bombs bursting in air?”

“Of course.” I replied.

“When I was on Iwo,” he said, “About the 3rd or 4th night, the Japanese gave us a real hard shelling. One of the wisecracks in my foxhole said, 'Hey look, it's like in the song, the bombs bursting in air.’”

Kalus didn’t pay much attention at the time, but a few years later he was again fighting for his life against frostbite and a fierce enemy at the Chosin Reservoir in Korea.

His story continued.

“One night at Chosin,” he said, “The 7th Marines were bravely taking a hill and the Chinese were giving them everything they'd got. The sky was filled with explosions and fireworks. I remembered what the Marine had said on Iwo, 'and the rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air.' At that moment I realized that I was seeing what Francis Scott Key had seen when he wrote the Star Spangled Banner."

The Marine got teary-eyed as he finished by saying that he could never listen to the American Anthem again without thinking of those fearful nights at Iwo and Chosin.

To this day, whenever I hear our national anthem played I think of the Colonel, those Marines, and the hope those words had given him, and so many millions of others around the world.

The Flag that flew over Fort McHenry in 1814

“O say can you see, by the dam’s early light. What so proudly we hailed at the twilights last gleaming.
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?”