Lt. Collins’ Flag Day Speech (from “The Sand Pebbles”)

As I’m sure most of you know, today is Flag Day, a day meant to honor the United States flag and to commemorate the Flag’s adoption.

Unfortunately, it is apparently more popular now to stomp on or burn the Flag, or not to fly it, because it may offend some fringe group or other…

The following speech from a movie is appropriate for today’s Blog post. There are many Americans who respect and honor the flag, who get a tightness in the chest, and watery eyes when they see the Stars and Stripes proudly flying from the yardarm of a Ship of War, or raised on the flagpole in some foreign land.

This post is for those of you who are currently serving, have served, or who just respect and honor the Flag and what it stands for…

“Today we begin cruising to show the flag on Tungting Lake and the Hunan Rivers. I want all honors rendered smartly.

At home in America, when today reaches them it will be Flag Day. For us who
wear the uniform every day is Flag Day.

It is said that there will be no more wars. We must pretend to believe that.
But when war comes, it is we who will take the first shock, and buy time with
our lives. It is we who keep the Faith…

We serve the Flag. The trade we all follow is the give and take of death.
It is for that purpose that the people of America maintain us. And anyone of
us who believes he has a job like any other, for which he draws a money wage, is a thief of the food he eats, and a trespasser in the bunk in which he lies down to sleep.”—Lt. Collins