WHEREAS, On June 14th, 1777, in the midst of the American Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress adopted a resolution stating that “the flag of the United States be thirteen alternate stripes red and white” and that “the Union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new Constellation”; and

WHEREAS, On September 14th, 1814, American soldiers under siege at Fort McHenry in Baltimore, Maryland raised a huge American flag to celebrate a crucial victory over British forces during the War of 1812, inspiring Francis Scott Key to write a poem that eventually became the words of the United States National Anthem; and

WHEREAS, On June 6th, 1944, more than 160,000 American and Allied troops carrying the “Stars and Stripes” landed along a 50-mile stretch of heavily fortified French coastline in Normandy to liberate Europe from the forces of Nazi Germany. More than 9,000 Allied soldiers were killed or wounded on D-Day to free Europe from fascist occupation; and

WHEREAS, On February 23rd, 1945, five Marines and a Navy Corpsman raised the American flag atop Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima. It was a hard-fought victory over imperialism at the cost of 5,900 United States service members killed and 17,400 wounded against 23,000 Japanese army and naval forces fighting from an entrenched network of caves, dugouts, tunnels and underground installations; and

WHEREAS, On July 20, 1969, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first human beings to set foot on the surface of the moon, where they placed the American flag. There, the flag has stood a decades-long vigil upon the Sea of Tranquility as a gesture of peace for all mankind; and

WHEREAS, On September 11th, 2001, in the aftermath of the terrorist attack which destroyed the World Trade Center, three New York City firefighters, George Johnson of Rockaway Beach, Ladder 157, Dan McWilliams of Long Island, Ladder 157, and Billy Eisengrein of Staten Island, Rescue 2, raised the American flag over the smoldering ruins of Ground Zero where the Twin Towers once stood. It was an act of defiance against those who sought to break the unconquerable values of freedom and liberty which the American flag represents; and

WHEREAS, In 2015, the United States of America will provide $35.4 billion in foreign assistance programs to more than 100 countries around the world through the efforts of over 20 different government agencies. These investments will further America’s foreign policy interests on issues ranging from expanding free markets, combating extremism, and ensuring stable democracies, to addressing the root causes of poverty, while simultaneously establishing the American flag as the undisputed image of global good will; now, therefore, be it