Americans United Flag Across America
Civic Plaza
Albuquerque, New Mexico
November 3, 2001

It's an honor to be here tonight with all of you and with the family of Al Marchand.

Becky, your belief in God and in our country has given strength to all of us.

This journey across America is special for the employees and families and friends of American Airlines and United. It's a journey completed, an act of faith, of courage, and of remembrance.

But this event is important to the rest of us as Americans too. Why is that so? What is it about this flag -- this piece of red and white and blue cloth -- that has touched us all?

This is the flag that was sewn by prisoners of war of blankets and rags in the camps after they survived Bataan.

This is the flag that flew behind a stone wall on a rise at Gettysburg and crossed the beach at Normandy.

This is the flag that flickers in the breeze above the sunken hulk of the Arizona at Pearl Harbor.

This is the flag that stands in the dusty corner of adobe churches along the Rio Grande.

This is the flag that adorns the lapels of proud new citizens and drapes the caskets of loved ones lost.

This is the flag that hangs in every classroom, of every school, where every day American children pledge their allegiance.

There is a tradition that every young American who joins the military learns: the colors never touch the ground. And if the man carrying the flag falls, another will take them up until there are none left.

This flag has been carried by every faith and every race of Americans. By rich and poor. By university professors and by men who could not spell a word. By the sons of Presidents and sons who did not know their father's names.

We pledge to it our lives, our allegiance, and our honor. It unites us to each other and to our common history as Americans.

Tonight, we pass it from hand to hand across New Mexico in the darkness toward the dawn. We will not falter and it will not touch the ground.

May God bless you on your journey and may God bless the United States of America.

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