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By Shavana Abruzzo
Brooklyn Daily
There’s a reason why the Star-Spangled Banner is the most exalted and evocative pennant of our time. It has been to hell and back for freedom, and has survived to tell the tale.
Today, June 14, is Flag Day, and a time to salute this important national icon, without which all that we hold dear wouldn’t exist, or even matter.
Its magical, perfectly composed face — created by Bob Heft of Michigan as a school project — is cause for reflection: a flash of red and white stripes representing the 13 colonies that courageously declared independence from Great Britain, offset by a meteor shower of stars, symbolizing the 50 united, but unique, states.
Its fame precedes it. Few of us can identify the national flag of Djibouti — a white, blue, and green affair, flecked with a red star — as readily as Djiboutians in the African nation can peg the Star and Stripes.
Flag Day is an opportunity to show our true colors, and to commemorate the contributions and sacrifices inked in her name with the blood of valiant Americans, who continue to surrender their lives on battlefields so she won’t fold.
Old Glory is a portrait of the U.S. She is who Americans are. She is what America stands for. And she is a powerful expression of this land’s glorious odyssey and reach.
She has proven mightier than the sword, while embracing dissenters with a gentle reminder that patriotism is an American duty.
The American flag has flown freely in the face of tyranny, and exposed and eradicated oppressors with her sovereignty and everlasting belief in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Yet she is also conflict-free. She is not the Bible, the Torah, the Buddha-Dharma, the Bhagavad Gita, or the Koran, but a force of strength, spirit, and solidarity, free of politics and religion.
Let this vibrant warrior fly proudly in every American home, school, and place of work and play — today, tomorrow, until infinity — because every day should be Flag Day in the greatest nation on earth.
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Read Shavana Abruzzo's column every Friday on BrooklynDaily.com. E-mail here at sabruzzo@cnglocal.com.