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Subject:
Ragged Old Flag
Date:
Mon, 3 Jul 2000 18:29:16 EDT
Ragged Old Flag
By John R. Cash, c 1974 House of Cash,
Inc.
I walked through a county courthouse
square,
On a park bench an old man was sitting
there.
I said, "Your old courthouse is kinda run
down."
He said, "Naw, it'll do for our little
town."
I said, "Your old flagpole has leaned a
little bit,
And that's a Ragged Old Flag you got
hanging on it."
He said, "Have a seat," and I sat down.
"Is this the first time you've been to our
little town?"
I said, "I think it is." He said, "I don't
like to brag,
But we're kinda proud of that Ragged Old
Flag.
"You see, we got a little hole in that
flag there when
Washington took it across the
Delaware.
And it got powder-burned the night Francis
Scott Key
Sat watching it writing Say Can You See.
And it got a bad rip in New Orleans
With Packingham and Jackson tuggin' at its
seems.
"And it almost fell at the Alamo
Beside the Texas flag, but she waved on
though.
She got cut with a sword at
Chancellorsville
And she got cut again at Shiloh Hill.
There was Robert E. Lee, Beauregard, and
Bragg,
And the south wind blew hard on that
Ragged Old Flag.
"On Flanders Field in World War I
She got a big hole from a Bertha gun.
She turned blood red in World War II.
She hung limp and low by the time it was
through.
She was in Korea and Vietnam.
She was sent where she was by her Uncle
Sam.
"She waved from our ships upon the briny
foam,
And now they've about quit waving her back
here at home
.
In her own good land here she's been
abused --
She's been burned, dishonored, denied, and
refused.
"And the government for which she stands
Is scandalized throughout the land.
And she's getting threadbare and wearing
thin,
But she's in good shape for the shape
she's in.
'Cause she's been through the fire before
And I believe she can take a whole lot
more.
"So we raise her up every morning, take
her
down every night.
We don't let her touch the ground and we
fold
her up right.
On second thought, I do like to brag,
'Cause I'm mighty proud of the Ragged Old
Flag."
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