I am the American flag

Date: 1976     Forward 

     I will speak from the wisdom of a long life. I unfurled my thirteen stars nearly two hundred years ago. I saw clattering horses pulling carriages over cobblestone streets. I have looked up to see silver jets streaking across blue skies. 

     I have known 37 presidents. I have unfurled my pride on sailing ships, steamers and mighty vessels of armed power to bring peace and freedom to oppressed people around the world. I have traveled on the tip of a mighty Saturn rocket to soar through space until I stood on the surface of the moon. I am the American flag.

     I was in the hand of my first President in the blood and snow of Valley Forge. Who could be called for help, in distress? I saw the child grow strong to belch smoke from steel furnaces and to break virgin prairie until they were blanked by fields of ripening grain. I flew from steel birders on skyscrapers in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. 

     The price paid for my freedom of speech is a price few remember. In my memory are young men who died for me at Pork Chop Hill, Verdun, Normandy, Iwo Jima, Pearl Harbor, Okinawa, Corregidor and the Asian jungles. I wrapped them in my love and draped my honor over their caskets in tropics, deserts and seas. I rise every morning to watch over the graves of our finest, whose years were short. 

     Now, I will speak about my land, her tragedy and triumph, her sins and her glory. 

Tuesday: Much that is good