UNITED STATES ARMY

    SAID WITH A TEAR IN YOUR EYE

IN light of the recent appeals court ruling in California, with respect to the 

Pledge of  Allegiance, the following recollection from Senator John McCain in

very appropriate:

"The Pledge of Allegiance" - by Senator John McCain

As you may know, I spent five and one half years as a prisoner of war

during the Vietnam War. In the early years of our imprisonment, the

NVA kept us in solitary confinement or two or three to a  cell. In 1971

the NVA moved us from these conditions of isolation into large rooms

with as many as 30 to 40 men to a room.  This was, as you  can imagine,

a wonderful change and was a direct result of the efforts of millions of

Americans on behalf of a few hundred POWs  10,000 miles from  home.

One of the men who moved into my room was a young  man named

Mike Christian. Mike came from a small town near Selma, Alabama. He

didn't wear a pair of shoes until he was 13 years old.  At 17, he  enlisted

in the US Navy. He later earned a commission by going to Officer Training

School Then he became a Naval Flight Officer and was shot down and

captured in 1967. Mike had a keen and deep appreciation of the

opportunities this country and our military  provide for people who want

to work and want to succeed. As part of the change in treatment, the

Vietnamese allowed some prisoners to  receive packages from  home.

In some of these packages were handkerchiefs, scarves and other items

of  clothing. Mike got himself a bamboo needle.  Over a  period of a

couple of months, he created an American flag and sewed on the

inside of his shirt.  Every afternoon, before we had a bowl of soup,

we would hang Mike's shirt on the  wall of the cell  and say the Pledge

of Allegiance. I know the Pledge of Allegiance  may not seem the  most

important part of our day now, but I can assure you that in that stark cell it

was indeed the  most important and meaningful event.  One day the

Vietnamese searched our cell, as they did periodically, and discovered

Mike's shirt with the flag sewn inside, and removed it. That evening they

returned, opened the door  of the cell, and for the benefit of all of us, beat

Mike Christian severely for the next couple of hours. Then, they opened the

door of the cell and threw  him in.  We cleaned him up as well  as we could.

The cell in which we lived had a concrete slab in  the middle on which we

slept.   A naked light bulbs hung in each  corner of the room. As I said,

we tried to clean up Mike as well as we could. After the excitement died

down, I  looked in the corner of the room, and sitting there beneath that dim

light bulb with a piece of red cloth, another shirt and his bamboo needle, was

my friend, Mike Christian.  He was sitting there with his eyes almost shut from

the beating he had received, making  another American flag. He was not making

the flag because it made Mike Christian feel better.  He was making that flag

because he knew how important it was to  us to be able to Pledge our allegiance

to our flag and country.  So the next time you say the Pledge of Allegiance, you

must never forget the  sacrifice and courage that thousands of Americans have

made to build our nation and promote freedom  around the world. You must

remember our duty, our honor, and our country  "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."

PASS THIS ON... And on... And on! You can even send it back to me,

I don't mind, because its worth reading again 
THE NEXT TIME YOU SAY IT  THE PLEDGE OF
ALLEGIANCE WILL BE SAID WITH A TEAR IN YOUR EYE

This was given by Senator McCain at the 1988 Republician National Convention.

Source:   TruthorFiction.com  http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/m/mccain-flag.htm