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 or 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
onbehalf of a few hundred POWs 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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