Editorial: Does that star-spangled banner yet wave?

O say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,

What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last gleaming

From inauguration ceremonies to baseball games to high school graduations and more, those words are used to celebrate the American flag. The national anthem was penned by Francis Scott Key after the Battle of Baltimore during the War of 1812.

But is the flag actually what is honored by the song?

Key watched the bombardment of Fort McHenry from a truce ship under a white banner after he negotiated the freedom of his friend, William Beanes, who was being held by the British. Not allowed to leave until two days after the battle, Key spent his time writing a four-stanza ode to the flag that still rippled over the fort, undefeated.

Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight

O’er the ramparts we watch’d were so gallantly streaming?

The poem was set to the music and quickly became entwined with the flag. The poem’s name was originally “The Defence of Fort McHenry,” but it wasn’t long before it was known only as “The Star-Spangled Banner.” For many, that became the name of the flag, too.

It wasn’t until 1931 that the song would become the national anthem by a vote of Congress. By that time, however, America had spent so much time at war — with other countries like Mexico and with its own people in the Civil War — that the eloquent lines about a flag fluttering despite the raging battle became about more than a piece of cloth.

And the rocket’s red glare, the bomb bursting in air,

Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there

The flag Key wrote about is a metaphor for something far larger than a rectangle of red, white and blue. He did not keep watch through his spyglass in hope the fabric wasn’t torn. What the flag meant that night, as it has for almost 250 years, is that America remained unbroken by the onslaught thrown at it.

Today, the torrent assailing us is not a barrage of British bombs. It is not a foreign siege. What we battle today is a struggle over what it means to be American and how to both live up to our legacy and forge ahead in a way that will make our children proud.

The flag in the song is us. What Key celebrated was American endurance and commitment. Today, on Flag Day, as we honor the cloth, it is important for all of us to remember that keeping the flag flying means working toward a common goal.

O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave

O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?