[Claire]

Can anyone give me the correct/true/whole story?

The flag has a knife, a match, a bullet sewed into the hem....

knife to cut the flag down
match to burn it
bullet to ?

I have heard two versions:

bullet to shot self as not to be taken prisoner

bullet represents the "shot" heard around the world?

Thanks everyone/anyone! God Bless America

[Peter Ansoff]

Hi, Claire, welcome!

There really is no true story. This whole business about the knife, match and bullet is just a silly legend. There's more information about it in the "Items Needed for Flag Pole" thread in the "Flag pole" section of this forum.

The original form of the story said that the items were inside the ball on top of the flagpole. This is the first time I've heard about them being actually sewn into the flag. That makes the story even crazier -- how would you hem a knife into a flag? It's either a very small knife or a very big hem! And, if the knife is in the flag, and the flag is flying on the pole, how can you reach it to cut the flag down? You'd need to take the flag down to get the knife, and at that point you don't need to cut it down because it's already down.

Best regards,

Peter Ansoff