Ronald Reagan

“ The preservation of freedom is ours to fulfill for our children and for the hope of mankind, just as our forebears fulfilled it for us in years of peace or peril. We will succeed as our countrymen did before us, but only if we make their spirit our own; we must always revere, just as deeply as did they, the Red, White, and Blue-our battlescarred flag. ”

“ Two hundred and eleven years have now gone by since that June day in 1777 when the Continental Congress adopted a flag for the United States of America, then a brand-new Nation fighting for its independence and for the novel notion that individual liberty was everyone's God-given birthright. The banner adopted then, the beautiful Stars and Stripes, was soon raised by a rebel hand for all the world to see. Our task and our glory as Americans is to keep the flag flying high, because freedom waves in its broad stripes and bright stars. ”