From: Mike Harr
Date: 3/10/2014 1:22:46 PM
To: Mike Harr
Subject: John McCain's Remarks About The Pledge of
Allegiance
John
McCain's remarks about the Pledge of Allegiance!
In light of the recent appeals court ruling in California,
with respect to the Pledge of Allegiance,
the following recollection from Senator John McCain is 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 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 POW's 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. Four 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."
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