Ragged Old Flag

I walked through a country courthouse square.
On a park bench, an old man was sitting there.
I said "Your courthouse looks kind of run down."
He said "Nah, It'll do for our little town."
I said "Your old flagpole's leaned alittle bit.
And thats a ragged old flag you got hanging on it."
He said "Have a seat." and I sat down.
"Is this the first time you've been to our little town?"
I said "I belive it is."

He said "I don't like to brag,
But we are kind of Proud of that old ragged flag.
You see, We got a little hole there in that flag
from where Washington took it across the Delaware.
And its got powder burns the night Francis Scott Key
sat watching it, writing, Oh say can you see."
And it got a bad rip down in New Orleans
with Packingham and Jackson tugged at it's seams.
She almost feel at the Alamo,
Next to the Texas flag, but she waved on through.
She got cut with a sword at Chancellorsville,
and she got cut again at Shilo Hill.
There were Robert E. Lee, Beauegard, and bragg,
and the south winds blew hard on that ragged flag.

On Flanders Field, in World War I,
She got a big hole from a Bertha gun.
She turned blood-red in World War II.
She hung limp and low a time or two.
She was in Korea and Vietnam,
and she went where she was sent by Uncle Sam.
She waves from our ships on the briny foam.
but they have just about quit waving her back at home.
In her own good land she has been abused,
She has been burned, dishonored, denied, and refused.
and the Govement for which she stands
is scandalized throughout the land.
She's looking threadbare and wearing thin.
But she's in good shape, for the shape she's in.
'Cause she's been through the fire before,
and I belive she can take a whole lot more.
So we raise her up every morning and bring her down every night.
We Don't 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.