Matthew Caswell
Introductions
Presentation of Colors
William Tyler Page
{Almost a Boy Scout Oath for
the general American public, great addition to a ceremony for the public}
"I
believe in the United States of America as a Government of the people by the
people, for the people, whose just powers are derived from the consent of the
governed; a democracy in a Republic; a sovereign Nation of many sovereign
States; a perfect Union, one and inseparable; established upon those principles
of freedom, equality, justice, and humanity for which American patriots
sacrificed their lives and fortunes.
I therefore believe it is my duty
to my Country to love it; to support its Constitution; to obey its laws; to
respect its flag, and to defend it against all enemies."
Copyright William Tyler Page.
Follows Speech copyright laws.
Remember Me?
Unknown
{I found on multiple websites, without
an author. Therefore, I cannot credit it to anyone but the unknown author.}
Some people call me Old Glory, others call me the Star-Spangled Banner, but
whatever they call me, I am your flag, the flag of the
I remember some time ago people lined up on both sides of the street to watch
the parade, and naturally, I was always there, proudly waving in the breeze.
When your daddy saw me coming, he immediately removed his hat and placed it
over his heart. Remember? And you, I remember you standing there straight as a
soldier. You didn't have a hat, but you were giving the right salute.
Remember your little sister? Not to be outdone, she was saluting the same as
you, with her hand over her heart. Remember?
What happened? I'm still the same old flag. Oh, I have added a few more stars
since you were a boy, and a lot more blood has been shed since those parades of
long ago. But I don't feel as proud as I used to. When I come down your street,
you just stand there with your hands in your pockets. I may get a small glance,
but then you look away.
I see children running around and shouting. They don't seem to know who I am. I
saw one man take off his hat and look around. He didn't see anybody else with
his hat off, so he quickly put his back on. Is it a sin to be patriotic? Have
you forgotten what I stand for and where I've been? …
Well, it won't be long until I'll be coming down your street again. So, when
you see me, stand straight and place your right hand over your heart.
I'll salute you by waving back.
And I'll know that you remembered.
Copyright 2002 Matthew
Caswell. All Rights Reserved. Permission is granted to use this material
appropriately for honoring the American and state flags.
By Hal Borland
{Hal Borland’s Creed
says it all. It explores the deeper
meaning of “I am an American.”}
I am an American: That's the way we put it, simply, without any swagger, without any brag, in those four plain words.
We speak them softly, just to ourselves.
We roll them on the tongue, touching every syllable, getting the feel of them, the enduring flavor.
We speak them humbly, thankfully, reverently: I am an American.
They are more than words, really. They are the sum of the lives of a vast multitude of men and women and wide-eyed children.
They are a manifesto to mankind; speak those four words anywhere in the world -- yes, anywhere -- and those who hear will recognize their meaning.
They are a pledge. A pledge that stems from a document which says: "When in the course of human events," and goes on from there.
A pledge to those who dreamed that dream before it was set to paper, to those who have lived it since, and died for it.
Those words are a covenant with a great host of plain Americans, Americans who put their share of meaning into them.
Listen, and you can hear the voices echoing through them, words that sprang white-hot from bloody lips, scornful lips, lips a tremble with human pity:
"Don't give up the ship! Fight her till she dies... Damn the torpedoes! Go ahead! . . . Do you want to live forever? . . . Don't cheer, boys; the poor devils are dying."
Laughing words, June-warm words, words cold as January ice:
"Root, hog, or die. ... I've
come from
You can hear men in assembly summoned, there in
You can hear them demanding guarantees for which they suffered through the hell of war, hear a Yankee voice intoning the text of ten brief amendments.
You can hear the slow cadences of a gaunt and weary man at
You can hear those echoes as you walk along the streets, hear them in the rumble of traffic; you can hear them as you stand at the lathe, in the roaring factory; hear them in the clack of train wheels, in the drumming throb of the air liner; hear them in the corn fields and in the big woods and in the mine pits and the oil fields.
But they aren't words any longer; they're a way of life, a pattern of living.
They're the dawn that brings another day in which to get on the job.
They're the
They're evening, with another day's work done; supper with the wife and kids; a movie, or the radio, or the newspaper or a magazine -- and no Gestapo snooping at the door and threatening to kick your teeth in.
They are a pattern of life as lived by a free people, freedom that has its roots in rights and obligations:
The right to go to a church with a cross or a star or a dome or a steeple, or not to go to any church at all; and the obligation to respect others in that same right.
The right to harangue on a street corner, to hire a hall and shout your opinions till your tonsils are worn to a frazzle; and the obligation to curb your tongue now and then.
The right to go to school, to learn a trade, to enter a profession, to earn an honest living; and the obligation to do an honest day's work.
The right to put your side of the argument in the hands of a jury; and the obligation to abide by the laws that you and your delegates have written in the statute books.
The right to choose who shall run our government for us, the right to a secret vote that counts just as much as the next fellow's in the final tally; and the obligation to use that right, and guard it and keep it clean.
The right to hope, to dream, to pray; the obligation to serve.
These are some of the meanings of those four words, meanings we don't often stop to tally up or even list.
Only in the stillness of a moonless night, or in the quiet of a Sunday afternoon, or in the thin dawn of a new day, when our world is close about us, do they rise up in our memories and stir in our sentinal hearts.
Only then? That is not wholly so -- not today!
For today we are drilling holes and driving rivets, shaping barrels and loading shells, fitting wings and welding hulls,
And we are remembering
We are remembering
Remembering, and muttering with each rivet driven home: "There's another one for remembrance!"
They're plain words, those four. Simple words.
You could write them on your thumbnail, if you chose, or you could sweep them all across the sky, horizon to horizon.
You could grave them on stone; you could carve them on the mountain ranges.
You could sing them, to the tune of "Yankee Doodle."
But you needn't. You needn't do any of those things, for those words are graven in the hearts of 130,000,000 people, they are familiar to 130,000,000 tongues, every sound and every syllable.
But when we speak them we speak them softly, proudly, gratefully:
I am an American.
Copyright Hal Borland. Follows
Speech copyright laws.
{I wrote this piece to
add something of mine to the ceremony. This piece works if you have 2 scouts,
one for “You are” and the other for “I am”, read it back and forth.}
You are the Stars and Stripes.
I am Old Glory.
You are the flag of the
I am the symbol of
democracy around the world.
You are red, white and blue.
I am the
representation of blood, purity and unity.
You are the flag that flies over the land of the free.
I am a silent sentinal of freedom.
You are as old as our country.
I was born on June 14,
1777.
You are a symbol of life.
I am a symbol of your
belief in eternal life.
You are displayed in every American classroom.
I am the soldier that
stands guard over my country’s classrooms.
You are the one who lies over the coffin of our honored dead.
I am flown at
half-mast to honor those who have served me and my country.
You embody the American freedoms: freedom of speech, religion, assembly, the press and the sanctity of the home.
I embody the eternal
principles of liberty, justice and humanity.
You are the living symbol of our nation’s law: the
Constitution of the
I am the voice of
Abraham Lincoln’s philosophy: “A government of the people, by the people, for
the people.”
You have your own special day, June 14.
I have my own law-
Public Law 829, “The Flag Code”.
You are the sacred emblem of our country.
I symbolize your
birthright, your heritage of liberty purchased with blood and sorrow.
You are the eternal vigilance, our price of freedom.
I was created in freedom,
making my first appearance in the fight for human rights.
You are my flag. I salute you.
I am the American
Flag. I respect those who salute me.
Copyright 2002 Matthew Caswell. All Rights Reserved. Permission is granted to use this material appropriately for honoring the American and state flags.
On
As new states were admitted to the union, a new star and a
new stripe was added to the flag. When this got to be a problem, Congress passed
another act on
In 1885, BJ Cigreno – a schoolteacher- arranged for his
students, in
Copyright 2002 Matthew
Caswell. All Rights Reserved. Permission is granted to use this material
appropriately for honoring the American and state flags.
Vice President Dan Quayle
{A nice speech that explains why
we have a flag.}
As Vice President and as a Senator and member of Congress
before that, I have visited dozens of foreign countries.
Believe me when I say I have seen lots of flags. Every
country in the world flies flags on ceremonial occasions, such as the arrival
of dignitaries on official trips.
But something sets Americans apart. We don't just put out
the flag for important visitors, or on solemn occasions, and then put it away.
Ordinary Americans, by the millions, revere our flag and display it every day.
We fly it from tall poles in front of our businesses, from
short poles in our front yards, from balcony railings in our condominium
complexes. We pin the flag on our jacket lapels and paste it to the windows of
our cars and trucks.
As soon as our toddlers can hold a little stick in their
tiny fists, we give them Old Glory to wave at the Fourth of July parade. And at
life's end, we drape the caskets of our fallen patriots with the Stars and
Stripes.
This proud display of, and devotion to, the symbol of our
nation is uniquely American. It is how we reaffirm the fact that we are indeed
"one nation" and that whatever our other differences, there are core
values Americans hold in common: a belief in the dignity of the individual, a
love of liberty, and a commitment to government of, for, and by the people.
By displaying the flag, we express our gratitude to the
generations past who fought and died for this country, and we remind ourselves
of our obligation to preserve for generations to come the freedom that others
won for us.
One of the privileges enjoyed by those of us in public life
is to be greeted by flags most everywhere we go. This simple expression of
patriotism is often a welcome relief from the cynicism of elites in our
nation's capital who are too "sophisticated" to be caught waving a
flag.
My acquaintances in the major media might find this hard to
believe, but there's nothing like seeing proud faces of youngsters reciting the
Pledge of Allegiance to remind you of the high ideals that first led you to
seek elected office.
I realize that the temper of our times is increasingly
cynical, that Americans in growing numbers raise a skeptical eyebrow upon
hearing the words "high ideals" and "elected office" in the
same breath.
If you read the same newspaper stores I do, then you have
seen the public opinion polls showing in what low repute we now hold the major
branches of government.
I must admit there are days when I understand those
feelings. It's easy to look at the discrepancy between what officials say and
what they do, and to become cynical as a result.
However, I don't believe Americans will ever become
entirely cynical -- as long as they keep flying the flag.
As a symbol of our republic and its institutions, our link
to this country's past and to its future, the flag helps us keep in mind that
the Founding Fathers created a durable and admirable system of government.
The founders didn't pretend to guarantee that only
honorable men and women would hold office. In fact, they assumed the opposite
-- and created a system of checks and balances as insurance against the
imperfect politicians they knew would always exist.
In other parts of the world, people tend to find Americans'
love of the flag overly sentimental. I believe that our system of government,
for all its occasional flaws, is still the finest in the world.
Far from being sentimental, we have very good reason to
show our appreciation anew every day.
Copyright Dan Quayle. Follows
Speech copyright laws.
{Just about anything
works here. This is what I chose.}
To show that we not only honor Old Glory, but also our state flags. Tonight we will be retiring flags of different states. State Code says that their flag shall be retired in the same manner as the American Flag.
As we retire these flags, let us hold a reverend silence.
Scout Attention
Color guard Attention
Color Guard forward march
Present Colors
Retire Colors
Copyright 2002 Matthew
Caswell. All Rights Reserved. Permission is granted to use this material
appropriately for honoring the American and state flags.
by Calvin Coolidge
{The title of this
speech says the meaning of the piece.}
We do honor to the stars and stripes as the emblem of our country and the symbol of all that our patriotism means.
We identify the flag with almost everything we hold dear on earth. It represents our peace and security, our civil and political liberty, our freedom of religious worship, our family, our friends, our home. We see it in the great multitude of blessings, of rights and privileges that make up our country.
But when we look at our flag and behold it emblazoned with all our rights, we must remember that it is equally a symbol of our duties. Every glory that we associate with it is the result of duty done. A yearly contemplation of our flag strengthens and purifies the national conscience.
Copyright Calvin Coolidge.
Follows speech copyright laws..
{This I wrote also. I
consider a civilian flag to be one that has flown over a business or a family
home. A veteran’s or a military flag would be one that has flown over a
military installment, a veteran’s grave or anything along those lines.}
We are here tonight to honor our nation’s flag. The United States Code Title 4, Chapter 1, Section 8 Paragraph k states "The flag, when it is in such condition that it is no longer a fitting emblem for display, should be destroyed in a dignified way, preferably by burning." As we honor this flag, we are also honoring those who have served and died under it.
Wars have
split this nation literally into parts. In the beginning, there were the
British and the Continental Army of the 1700’s. The Redcoats were back for more
in 1812. As the nation grew, heated conflicts rose into the Civil War in the
1860’s. The sinking of the Lustinia brought the American Armed Forces into the
First World War. The infamous attack of
Please rise for the presentation of the colors.
Please hold a reverend silence as we do our duty to our flag, our nation, and our fellow citizens.
Scout Attention
Color guard Attention
Color guard forward march
Present colors
The red on the flag represents the bloodshed of those who have fought for our freedom.
The blue represents truth and justice like the eternal blue of the star-filled heavens.
The white represents purity and cleanliness of purpose, thought, word and deed.
Each stripe represents each of the thirteen colonies that united to form a new government.
Each star represents each of the fifty states.
Each red stripe represents a war in which the
Each white stripe represents the purity found in the National Mall Memorials.
The star field represents the unity in which the armed forces fight with.
Copyright 2002 Matthew
Caswell. All Rights Reserved. Permission is granted to use this material
appropriately for honoring the American and state flags.