A Flag Worth Defending

In this corner: UFC Freedom 250, Flag Day, and the Army’s birthday bash.

J.B. Shurk | June 14, 2026

June 14 is both Flag Day and the U.S. Army’s two-hundred-fifty-first birthday.  As part of America’s ongoing celebration of its sestercentennial this year, President Trump asked the Ultimate Fighting Championship to hold a mixed martial arts contest on the South Lawn of the White House tonight.  UFC Freedom 250 promises to be a fun and patriotic tribute to the greatest country in the world.

This important year in American history finds our nation more fractured than we would like.  Fifty years ago, when bicentennial events celebrated America’s two-hundredth birthday, the country was divided, too.  

After WWII, returning veterans entered a workforce energized by prodigious industrial growth.  Young families bought new homes, had babies, embraced new technologies, enjoyed the comforts of consumerism, and pursued the post-war tranquility of the widely advertised American dream.  As the 1950s came to an end, so did the relatively peaceful respite that gave Americans a sense of common purpose, gratitude, resolve, and quiet dignity.  The ‘60s counterculture; the civil rights movement; the sexual revolution; the rise of women in the workforce; the assassinations of President Kennedy, his brother Bobby, and Martin Luther King Jr.; the Vietnam War; the Watergate scandal; and the resignation of President Nixon shook America like a carbonated beverage ready to explode.  

When the bicentennial arrived in 1976, Americans chose the milquetoast Jimmy Carter over the forgettable Gerald Ford for president; however else one recalls Carter’s economic and foreign policy blunders, his leadership resembled the color beige.  Remembered for his administration’s inability to avert fuel shortages and failure to rescue American hostages held by Iranian terrorists for four-hundred-forty-four days, Carter lacked charisma, and his presidency was neither inspiring nor dynamic.

Still, even amid the challenges of the mid-70s, Americans celebrated the bicentennial with enthusiasm.  The turbulence, violence, and uncertainty of the previous decade and a half........

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