[The Right Stuff]

Except the ramparts we watched section. I don't get that. What are ramparts and why were we watchin' em? ***

Hey, Duh, I know you are joshing me. However, for those victims of the public school system (i.e. commie indoctrination camp 101) I shall relate the following.

Ahem, students, the Star Spangled Banner was written by Francis Scott Key during the War of 1812. Key had been briefly imprisoned upon a British Man O'War in Chesapeake Bay, while trying to negotiate a friend's release.

As he watched the bombardment, he was amazed that the Stars and Stripes still flew (Paul Harvey has reported that the men of the garrison, realizing the import of the flying flag to the Americans, volunteered to hold Old Glory aloft after the flagpole was decimated - as each man died, another would crawl forward to take his place).

The "ramparts" thus are the walls of Fort McHenry, still standing in Baltimore, MD.

"And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air, gave proof through the night, that our flag was still there."

[floriduh voter]

So the flag was still there at the ramparts without a flag pole, like the people with their flags in the upper deck and the flags at ground zero on the shell of the buildings. And, if you consider the genuine surge in patriotism, not only was the flag still there, now the "flag is everywhere"!