Flag Day, June 14

We celebrated Flag Day Monday, June 14. I enjoyed driving to work down Main Street while taking in the beautiful adornment of red, white and blue waving in the North Texas wind. As I looked upon those flags, I was reminded of the core American values—the ones listed in the Declaration of Independence.

Alexander Henry—the textile designer known for merging fashion and history—asked the question, “On what rests the hope of the Republic?” And he answered, “One country, one language, one flag.” I strongly agree that our hope for the future of America is based on solidarity. Our American flag is a representation of that solidarity that we hold true when we vow our allegiance— “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

Although the U.S. Pledge was first published in a periodical in 1892, officially accepted by Congress in 1924, and later modified by President Eisenhower in 1954, the flag and the pledge have stood the test of time. When we stand beneath the stars and stripes, we share the pride of President George Washington when he described the meaning of our flag, stating, “We take the stars from heaven, the Red from our Mother Country, separating it by white stripes, thus showing that we have separated from her, and the white stripes shall go down to posterity, representing our liberty.”