JOHN MCCAIN'S REMARKS    ABOUT THE PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE!
I n 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 on behalf 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."