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Battle of the Flag
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| by Gary Huddleston |
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A protest raged on a courthouse lawn,
Round a
makeshift stage they charged on,
Fifteen hundred
or more they say,
Had come to burn a flag that day.
A boy held up the folded flag,
Cursed it, and called
it a dirty rag.
An old man pushed through the
angry crowd,
With a rusty shotgun shouldered proud.
His uniform jacket was old and tight,
He had polished
each button shiny and bright.
He crossed that stage
with a soldier's grace,
Until he and the boy stood
face to face.
"Freedom of Speech" the old man
said,
"Is worth dying for, good men are dead,
So you can stand on this courthouse lawn,
And talk
us down from dusk to dawn.
But before any flag gets
burned today,
This old man is going to have his say!"
"My father died on a foreign shore,
In a war
they said would end all wars.
But Tommy and I wasn't
even full grown,
Before we fought in a war of our
own.
And Tommy died on Iwo Jima's beach,
In the
shadow of a hill he couldn't quite reach
Where five
good men raised this flag so high,
That the whole
world could see it fly!"
"I got this bum leg
that I still drag,
Fighting for this same old flag.
Now there's but one shot in this old gun,
So now
it's time to decide which one,
Which one of you will
follow our lead,
To stand and die for what you believe?
For as sure as there is a rising sun,
You'll
burn in Hell 'fore this flag burns, son"
Now this
riot never came to pass.
The crowd got quiet and
that can of gas,
Got set aside as they walked away
To talk about what they had heard this day.
And
the boy who had called it a "dirty rag",
Handed the
old soldier the folded flag.
So the battle of the
flag this day was won
By a tired old soldier with
a rusty gun,
Who for one last time, had to show to
some,
This flag may fade, yet the colors don't run! |
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