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Flag Day 2025 - The Journey

Francis Scott Key’s immortal poem ended not with a question but with a confident assertion.

I was there the day Philadelphia fell to the British. The Battle of Brandywine, an ill-fated clash between Sir William Howe and the illustrious General George Washington, terminated in the latter’s defeat. The enemy occupied the City of Brotherly Love — then the American seat of government — and Washington’s army only barely managed to escape.

I recoil to imagine how Howe and his men may have rejoiced that night. If their eyes fell upon me at all — for Brandywine was but my first trial under fire — they must have presumed that my days were numbered. To them, it would have seemed folly — this young nation daring to raise a standard of its own. Perhaps they mocked me, confident they would soon replace me with their British Red Ensign and abolish my memory. I must confess: that night, my future, indeed, appeared bleak.

But four years later, when I reencountered the Red Ensign, it was in an altogether different state, for it was beneath this flag that British General Lord Charles Cornwallis surrendered to the Americans at Yorktown. As Lieutenant St. George Tucker recorded in his detailed account of the siege and subsequent surrender, the British turned over 22 flags that fateful day, marking, at last, the end of the war.

Here was a great mystery. How had I — the risible ensign of an indigent band of rebels — survived? I had not existed when the red coats first landed on our shores; I represented everything they detested and sought to eliminate. Tested against the rock of their empire’s indomitability, how had I emerged as the victor?

I had not yet made sense of these perplexing riddles when, in 1812, a new war with the British befell us. Spirited with the vibrance of liberty’s youth, I once again enlisted to serve, this time at a bastion fort in Baltimore. It was here that, in 1814, under the command of Major George Armistead, I faced perhaps the most formidable onslaught of my career: a naval bombardment from British warships. The view, admittedly, was spectacular, but the rockets, bombs, and cannonballs tempted me to kneel. “Escape our fiery blast,” they coaxed. “Why don’t you save yourself?” I am ashamed to say I well nigh listened. But the dauntless bravery of the freemen fighting beneath me heartened me to stay. Only later did I learn that my fortitude had roused a certain Francis Scott Key, watching the battle from afar, to pen a poem of singular beauty: “Defence of Fort M’Henry.” The words, I suspect, are familiar to you, although you may know it by another name.

The Americans’ victory at Baltimore soon resulted in the end of the war, and I dared to hope, at last, that liberty had been enshrined so immutably as to abate the need for subsequent bloodshed to defend it. But alas, this could never be true, for, within our midst, I soon discovered a grave and horrific hypocrisy: long had the patriot orators decried slavery for themselves; but bondage for others they yet permitted. It was a loose thread within my fabric, and it threatened to unravel me.

So wholly at odds was the institution of slavery with the spirit of liberty to which our Union was dedicated that when men of the South rose in rebellion to uphold it, they could no longer claim the banner of our fathers. In its place, they lifted a new and faithless flag — one that gave shelter not to liberty but to the bondage of the oppressed race.

“If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher.” Such words, spoken by a rising politician from Illinois in 1838, haunted me. Humiliated, torn, and stained by the blood of patriots at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, I could not help but suppose that government of, by, and for the people was destined, in short order, to perish from the earth. And yet, I did not find it within me to abandon my blue and my red; I had seen my share of armistice banners, but the noble principles for which the soldiers beneath me fought, I resolved, must never retire. I would permit them to carry me into the very fires of battle — Fort Sumter, Antietam, Gettysburg — that we might break the chains of the bondman and, in their place, forge an imperishable link to hold this Union fast.

That link — sometimes nothing more than a thread — would eventually guide us into reunification — and another enigma: how had I yet again been so lucky? How had I survived an attempt at national suicide? Abraham Lincoln, the aforementioned politician from Illinois, feared that such an event would engender our demise. And yet, despite a devastating civil war, we had emerged as a “more perfect union.” How? It hardly seemed possible.

I had little time to consider these questions, for the nation quickly put me back to work: I watched in concurrent pride and dismay as America struggled to heal during Reconstruction. I was sent overseas during World War I. During World War II, six Marines courageously raised me on a blood-soaked island called Iwo Jima (only three of them would make it out alive). I was draped over the casket of a fallen president. Fittingly, that president inspired astronauts to carry me to the moon. Civil rights demonstrators carried me in their long, defiant marches. Firefighters hailed me at the site of a terrible terrorist attack. Countless times, I have been meticulously folded in honor of deceased veterans.

Today, I reside in a placed called Arlington National Cemetery, where I oversee and guard more than 400,000 graves. ’Tis a sobering sight, indeed. And yet, it has permitted me the time to, at last, unravel the mysteries that have perplexed me since Yorktown: why have I, against all odds, endured? I have watched empires rise and fall, and I have seen the battle turn for ill. I have wept as unknown soldiers yielded the last full measure of devotion for my protection; mourned as widows stained me with their tears. I may never understand why mere mortals rise to such heights when confronted with death, but it’s their bravery that sustains me. Moreover, they have finally revealed to me why Francis Scott Key’s immortal poem ended not with a question but with a confident assertion:

Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto — “In God is our trust!”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave

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Created:	2025-06-13 06:18 GMT
Updated:	2025-06-20 07:00 GMT
Published:	2025-06-13 15:00 GMT
Converted:	2025-11-11 12:05 GMT
Change Author:	Jakob Fay
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