Johnny Got His Beverage (Keep it Funky)

These two pieces (March of the Flag and Johnny Got His Gun) are related because they are essentially antithetical. March of the Flag is a great manifestation of someone who can't spell manifest destiny. Manifest Destiny was the highly imperialistic idea that it was by divine will that Americans were expected to spread their way of life across the world. Beveridge also inserted some elements of racial superiority by calling Americans "a people sprung from the most masterful blood of history...." This is evident of the late-nineteenth/early-twentieth century American notion that other countries (specifically in Latin America) are not as civilized, thus necessitating their facilitation into "the marvel of American society".
Johnny Got His Gun, however, is directly opposed to this view: the Vietman War was purposed to establish American-style democracy in Vietnam, regardless of what the people wanted. The opposition to this is the focus of the novel; if the novel's setting were in the time of Beveridge's speech, the opposition to such cultural/political imperialism would have been much more severe.