What the US flag means to a veteran

Bernard John Cigrand is known as the “Father of Flag Day.”

In 1885, working as a 19-year-old teacher, he placed a 10-inch, 38-starred flag on his desk and assigned his students essays about what the flag meant to them. He typically called June 14 the “Flag’s Birthday,” but it was not officially recognized until 1949, when President Harry S. Truman signed the National Flag Day Bill.

The flag of the United States is the banner of the greatest nation on earth. It is a standard of peace, a beacon, a guiding light, a symbol of hope and freedom. It is many things to many people.

Where this flag flies, all know that freedom rings and godly people abound. “I think vital religion has always suffered when orthodoxy is more regarded than virtue. The scriptures assure me that at the last day we shall not be examined on what we thought but what we did.” Since Benjamin Franklin wrote these words to his father in 1738, this nation was born and risen to world prominence. It has done so on the shoulders of generations of brave men and women who are best defined by their deeds.

To me, the flag represents those deeds and great words of action so profound as to be evidence of godly inspiration. “We hold thesetruths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights ...”

To me, the flag represents that ageless question, “Is life so dear, or peace too sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chain and slavery?” — Patrick Henry

To me, the flag is a symbol around which good and honorable citizens rally to further the struggle of liberty. To measure themselves against that inseparable standard and ideal that freedom is dearer than life.

To me, the flag speaks so eloquently of God who has established among the nations a great nation, a place where all creation is welcome no matter their skin, or faith, or birth or tongue.

To me, the flag represents the hope of a nation and generations past, that until that final day comes, brave citizens will continue to unite in an undivided allegiance in America first.

And to me, the flag represents my freedom to speak against injustice, to pursue happiness, to teach my children, to vote my conscience, to bend my knee before

God as he commands and that no other born of flesh may rightly object. And should they do so, I rest in the knowledge that a mighty nation of free people will rise up in defense of liberty.

Joe Vickery is a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps and lives in Texas City.