It only takes a few bars of the patriotic song “(You’re a) Grand Old Flag,” by George M. Cohan (1878-1942), to really get you in the spirit of Flag Day. For those of you who may have forgotten, the lyrics are like this:

“You’re a grand old flag,

You’re a high flying flag

And forever in peace may you wave.

You’re the emblem of

The land I love.

The home of the free and the brave.”

If that doesn’t get your motor running, then perhaps you should consider moving to another country. I have an issue with these people who trash our flag and our national anthem. There is nothing anymore disgraceful than some Hollywood type getting up singing off key and making a mockery of our national anthem. It is neither cute nor funny in my opinion. Too much patriot’s blood has been shed preserving this great land; it’s ideals and principles to be disrespectful.

Every man and woman who has ever given their life for the cause of freedom and our way of life has their name written in blood on our national symbol, the flag. Who could ever forget the flag-raising image on Iwo Jima by our Marines?

Be ye keepers of the sacred memory of our fallen heroes.

One of the earliest flags we have knowledge of is “The Grand Union.”

It was in use when George Washington advanced on Boston to take on the British. The Grand Union had 13 red and white horizontal stripes representing the colonies with a white cross underneath a horizontal and vertical red bar on a blue field in the upper left hand corner of the flag. Of course the white cross and red bars represented the British Union Jack by which the colonies were ruled until the Declaration of Independence.

Soon after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the Continental Congress in 1777 adopted a flag design as such: “Resolved, that the flag of the United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field representing a new constellation.” They did not specify any particular arrangement for the stars and flags were made with varying star arrangement until well into the 1800s.

If you are curious about the rest of “Grand Old Flag,” here it is:

Ev’ry heart beats true

‘neath the Red, White and Blue,

Where there’s never a boast or brag.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,

Keep your eye on the grand old flag.