The Ragged Old Flag

I walked through a county courthouse square
On a park bench, an old man was sitting there.
I said, “Your courthouse looks kind of run down.”
He said, “No, it’s all right for our little town.”

I said, “But your flag pole leans quite a bit,
And there’s a ragged old flag flying from it.”
He said, “Have a seat,” so I sat down.
He said, “Is this the first time you’ve been to our little town?”

I think that it is.” He said, “We don’t like to brag,
But we’re sort of proud of that ragged old flag.”
“You see it got that hole in it there,
When Washington was crossing the Delaware.”

It got powder burned the night that Francis Scott Key
Was watching and writing, “Oh say can you see.”
It got kind of pulled apart at New Orleans
With Packingham and Jackson tuggin’ at her seams.

She almost fell at the Alamo
With the Texas flag, but she waved on through.
She got cut with a sword at Chancendorville
And another cut at Shiloh Hill.

There was Robert E. Lee, Beauregard and Brag
Oh, the south wind blew hard on the ragged old flag.
In Flanders field in World War one
She got that big hole with a Bertha gun.

She turned blood red in World War Two
And hung limp and low before it was through.
She went to Korea and Vietnam
You see, She went where she was sent by her Uncle Sam.

She waved from ships on the briny foam
But they weren’t waving her much back home.
In her own good land, she was abused.
She was defiled, dishonored, burned, refused,

And the government for which she stands
Is scandalized in many lands.
She’s wearin’ threadbare, she’s mighty thin,
But she’s a good flag for the shape she’s in.

She’s been through the fire before
And I know she can take a while lot more.
So we put her up in the morning
And take her down every night.

We never let her touch the ground
And we fold her up right.
On second thought, I do like to brag
Cause I’m mighty proud of That ragged old flag.

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